


matryoshka

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Archivist Gerard Keay, Attempted Fix-It, Complete, I continue my tradition of just beating the absolute shit out of Jon, Multi, No idea what to tag this as lads, Past Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Time Loop, Time Travel, Web Avatar Martin Blackwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25710199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: Jon manages to keep himself from reading all of the Watcher’s Crown and then, somehow, he isn’t there anymore. He’s in the Archives, years earlier. He can fix everything before it starts, right?Wrong. He’s in Georgie’s flat. There’s still time to make things right, it’s not too late, surely?Wrong. The Archives, except that that’s not—is that Martin? That’s probably—Wrong. Scotland. Maybe this was all just a bad dream. Martin says it was all just a bad dream. Martin’s always so right, even if he’s acting off. Even if his hair is streaked with spiderweb.
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 338
Kudos: 609





	1. 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> The absolute LAST thing I needed to do was start a THIRD Magnus WIP, and yet! Here I Am!!! I have really specific ideas for this one but the execution is proving way more difficult than I expected....but! Hope you enjoy.
> 
> (the title is a very bad joke. sorry.)

The invocation tears out of his throat and he fights the urge to give into inevitability. He knows how this goes, even if he doesn’t know, even if panic is flooding his mind and drowning everything else out. He has to stop himself speaking and quickly and there isn’t enough  _ time _ and--he shoves his fingers down his throat to try and cut the words off but he instinctively bites his fingers hard and pulls them back out, hissing in pain, Elias’s dread ritual still pouring out of him.

There’s not enough time to kill himself before he finishes, as much as he feels like he should,  _ has _ to, for the good of the world, for--for Martin. He forces himself to his feet, every muscle and tendon and synapse working hard against him, and it hurts to fight his body this hard, shrieking, boundless pain echoing through every nerve. He manages to throw himself hard into the edge of the table, hard enough to wind himself and stop speaking for a moment, struggling for air, and the hold the ritual had on him lifts, long enough for him to stagger back, bloody stinging hand pressed to his ribs.

He can’t stay balanced, it’s like his inner ears are wrong, or like he has the bends, depressurizing after being forced on a cosmic ride, and he keeps taking steps backwards to try and steady himself.

His back hits a wall. It  _ was _ a wall, he’s almost sure of it, but it somehow opens, and he falls through, and can’t stop falling, and the dizziness follows him, leaving him disoriented and sick, eyes scanning for something to hold onto, but it’s all just blinding color, and directions and time and space lose meaning, there is nothing but overwhelming, psychedelic, existentially painful  _ something _ and he can’t stand it anymore. If he had a name, a meaning, a place in the world, it vanishes, drowns in the noise, the pulsing living prismatic music of it all.

He ceases to exist, and then he blinks and he exists again, breathing shallowly, head buzzing, spinning, brain melting in his skull. 

He comes back to himself. Jonathan Sims. The Archivist. Jon. He knows who he is, and after a brief moment, where he is, though it doesn’t make much sense.

His desk, in the Archives, the smell of stale air and old paper. A tape recorder clicks on in front of him and starts whirring, and he sputters softly at it. His hands are both intact and undamaged, and he has to squint at them a moment to reconcile that. 

This isn’t right. Nothing about this is right. But it’s not the end of the world, it’s not--it’s not the Watcher’s Crown, unless--but why would the Eye take him back here, if--

He can’t follow his thoughts, his mind is still overwhelmed with dizzy, singing static, and he stares blankly into his desk, trying to steady himself.

There’s a knock at the door of his office, and the sound startles a ragged gasp out of him. He grips the edge of his desk. “C--come in,” he says, a cold terror ripping his heart apart.

“Uh, um--hi!” Martin says, leaning into the office, and Jon shudders with relief, gasping.

“Martin, thank God, I--I’m so glad you’re alright,” he says, trying to stand up, to go hold Martin, but the second he rises he’s back in his chair again, too off-balance to stay standing. He can’t keep Martin’s face in focus, it keeps spinning away, but he seems concerned.

“Uh...that’s…” Martin starts. “Why--why wouldn’t I be? Is--what’s going...are you okay? D’you need to go to the doctor? Or home? Or--you don’t seem very well, I…”

“No, I’m--I’m fine, I just need a moment,” Jon says, swallowing hard. “But you’re alright? Nothing went--went  _ wrong _ ?”

“Went...wrong?” Martin asks, laughing nervously. “What d’you mean? I was just--I mean, I was just doing a follow-up interview on--”

A horrible dread creeps over Jon, and he shuts his eyes against the dizziness, pressing a hand over them. “Martin, what--what year is it?’

“Uh--are you sure you’re okay?” Martin asks. 

“Just  _ tell me _ ,” Jon snaps, without meaning to, and Martin makes one of his strangled noises and sputters even harder.

“Uh, um, it’s--it’s 2016?” Martin says, and Jon can’t stop the winded laugh that escapes him at that. 

So he’s been placed in some kind of sick hell, or something. This can’t be real. But if it’s some kind of trick, he’s not going to escape it by kicking against it. The only way out is through, or whatever the fucking expression is. “Thank you, Martin,” Jon says, unable to keep the existential exhaustion out of his voice. “What were you coming in for?”

“Was just...uh, was just going to ask if you wanted coffee?” Martin asks, voice small, and Jon drops his hand and opens his eyes to see Martin hugging himself with one arm, shoulders hunched, visibly terrified.

Jon hates himself deeply for ever having that effect on Martin. It takes him a moment to process what Martin actually said. “Wait, sorry, coffee?” Jon asks.

“Um. Yes?”

“You don’t--you don’t drink coffee,” Jon says, squinting in confusion. “It keeps you up.”

“That’s...what?” Martin asks, looking so thoroughly uncomfortable that Jon deeply wants to put him out of his misery by ending this interaction.

“N--nothing,” Jon says, shaking his head. “No, thank you. I appreciate the offer.”

“O..okay,” Martin says. “You’re  _ sure  _ you’re alright? You seem…”

“What, insane?  _ Bad _ ?” Jon asks, tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m fine, Martin, thank you for the concern. Didn’t sleep well.”

“Okay,” Martin repeats. “Well. If you’re...if you’re sure.”

“I am.”

Martin gives Jon a weak, half-hearted thumbs up, and all but books it back into the Archive, away from Jon, and Jon lets out a long breath, gripping his desk again, head pounding and spinning.  _ 2016\.  _ Early enough to fix--to fix  _ everything _ , but--but this can’t be real, obviously, this is some sick fucking game.

Elias--Jonah--whoever...he must know what’s going on, whatever it is. And besides, if Jon--if Jon kills him--maybe it’s early enough that all their ties to the Eye are too weak for it to destroy them as well. It might be a risk he’s willing to take, to possibly free them all, to  _ save the world _ , though that’s laughable considering he’s the one that destroys it.

He needs a weapon. Figures  _ knowing _ an avatar of the Eye to death won’t work the way it did on Peter, but anyone can get knifed--a lesson from Melanie, certainly. The question is where to get one on short notice, but--but there’s time. He doesn’t need to rush in. If he’s learned anything from this neverending nightmare, it should certainly be that.

He should think before he acts, and he should speak to the others, and...and in case he does die in the process of taking Elias out, he should probably tell Martin he loves him. 

He pushes himself to his feet and supports himself on the table for a minute, letting his head clear as much as it’s going to before attempting to leave his office, which leads to him staggering hard into the doorframe. He clings to it and breathes heavily, mouth flooding with saliva, but he swallows it back and tries to compose himself. 

He slowly, steadily, forces himself into the Archive, and a lively, if hushed conversation between voices he never dreamed he’d hear in person again immediately stops. Tim gives him a confused, but ultimately very Tim, smile.

“You good, boss?” he asks. “You look rough.”

“I’m not feeling too well, actually,” Jon says, but he can’t tear his eyes off Sasha, who’s looking at him like he is absolutely, completely mad. But it’s  _ her _ , actually her, actually alive, and he has to fight hard to keep a disbelieving laugh down. He feels himself smiling and tries to stop it, but he can’t. Even if this isn’t real, it’s still--it  _ feels  _ real, and it’s fucking good to see her again, to be temporarily relieved of the guilt he carries on his shoulders like Atlas holding the world.

“Are you high?” Sasha asks, squinting at him, and he can’t suppress the laugh anymore, it tears out of him wild and maniacal.

“Honestly, I might as well be,” Jon says, trying to compose himself even a little. 

“What does that... _ mean _ ,” she says, eyebrow inching up. “Do you--should we take you to A&E?”

“Field trip!” Tim says, fistpumping, though there’s some hint of concern in his eyes. 

“No, no, I’m--” Jon laughs breathlessly. “I’m fine.”

“You owe me a quid,” Martin says, elbowing Tim and hugging himself, looking deeply distressed.

“Yeah, fair enough,” Tim says. “This definitely counts as weirder than normal.”

“Jon...what’s wrong,” Sasha says, her eyes locked with his, unwavering, and Jon swallows hard.

“It’s just...it’s good to see you,” Jon says. “You too, Tim.”

“What, not Martin?” Tim asks, beaming. 

“It’s never good to see me, don’t you know,” Martin mutters, looking away from Jon. 

“It’s always good to see you, actually, Martin,” Jon says, and Martin immediately flushes bright red, eyes widening. “I’m lucky to have you all.”

“Okay, yeah, I’m calling it, he’s tripping on  _ something _ ,” Tim says, standing up decisively and wrapping an arm around Jon’s shoulders. “Alright, mate, we’re gonna get you somewhere that isn’t a spooky archive and ride this out, yeah?”

“No, Tim, I’m--”

“And I still would like to be paid for the day because I am, technically, assisting you.” Tim pats Jon’s shoulder with the arm wrapped around him. “Good?”

“I’m not--”

“Check his pupils,” Sasha says. Tim obliges, pushing Jon’s face in his direction and tilting his chin up, squinting down into his eyes. It’s frighteningly, aggressively intimate, but, well, that’s Tim.

Jon doesn’t understand the expression that creeps across Tim’s face, some combination of horror and fascination and confusion. 

“Uh…” Tim says. “Well, that’s…”

“What?” Jon asks, and Tim blinks rapidly, dropping his hand and shaking his head.

“Nothing,” he says. “Not sure what...uh...his eyes are normal, Sash.”

“Well,  _ something’s _ wrong with him,” she says, throwing her hands up. “Not that we didn’t already know that, but, you know.”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Jon says, ducking out from under Tim’s arm. “Really. Just exhausted and feeling a little ill.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Tim says, smiling again. 

“I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Jon says, looking at each of them for too long, holding onto their faces, Sasha’s especially, trying to burn into his mind how it feels to be there with them again. His eyes linger on Martin, who looks so  _ young _ . The next four years age him significantly, and it tears at Jon’s heart. 

Martin just looks back with his eyes full of confusion and worry and what Jon now understands as infatuation. Jane Prentiss hasn’t trapped him in his flat yet, his mum’s still alive, Jon hasn’t dragged him through hell--Jon can spare him  _ so much pain _ .

His resolve strengthens, as if it weren’t ironclad before. If this all is real, he’s going to fix it for the three of them. They deserve the lives he tore from them with all his stupid fucking mistakes and reactionary decisions and paranoid delusions and he’s going to make sure they get them.

He has to. 

The Eye is on him as he slowly makes his way out of the Institute, pointedly ignoring all of the looks he’s getting from the other departments’ staff. He’s focusing so much effort on staying standing against the dizziness that he can’t stop himself  _ knowing _ what they’re thinking, and the ambient noise starts to overwhelm him to the point where he barely stifles a scream.

He shoves out onto the street and it just gets  _ worse _ , all the knowledge of all the people around him flooding his mind so violently he can’t hold himself up anymore and crashes to his knees, arms braced on the pavement. He knows the people who pass by’s maiden names and birthdays and deepest desires and first kisses and he can’t shut it off, can’t slam the door in his mind shut and he struggles for air, for some way to keep moving, but this is an attack, a calculated move, Elias baiting him into action.

Fuck Elias. Jon does this on  _ his  _ terms.

He somehow,  _ somehow _ , fights back to his feet, blood pouring from his right nostril, and staggers into the wall of the Institute, ignoring the looks people are giving him and shrugging off the few strangers kind enough to stop and ask if he needs help. 

One puts a hand on his shoulder and says  _ you need to go to a hospital, mate _ and Jon spits back  _ helping me won’t fix the way you let her die, nothing will _ , and they recoil hard, winded, and Jon manages to make his escape. 

Some of the pressure eases. The Eye blinks shut. A strong enough show of will to keep it off him, if only for a bit.

That’s fine. He won’t need long. 


	2. 1.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thank you for the positive response I really wasn't expecting it! This chapter is, uh. Okay, I've only written Elias in one other fic but I have a tendency to get very carried away with it so...brace yourself lol. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Also I know what I want most of the loops to be/accomplish, but actually writing them is like free jazz thus far so I hope it's...y'know. Coherent and cohesive.)

Jon gets on the Tube, pinching his nostrils shut to try and stop the bleeding, some half-formed plan about going into one of those posh cooking stores and buying a butcher’s knife webbing together in his mind, and then--

He’s standing back outside the Institute. It nearly gives him whiplash. He blinks, confused, turning around like that could possibly give him a clue as to how--but there’s nothing, no reason, he’s just...there, unarmed, hands shaking.

The building calls him, like that song of love and belonging Jon heard when Jane Prentiss’s worms burrowed into his skin. Compels him back in. He’s never been fantastic at resisting temptation, and he lets it pull him, taking numb, stuttering steps.

Fine. He’s adaptable. New plan: there are knives left in the kitchen from people’s lunches. Too dull, probably, but if he goes for the eyes, the throat--it’s possible. Not easily. But it doesn’t have to be easy, it just has to happen.

He makes his way back into the Archives. Tim’s explaining his organizational system to Sasha, not for the first time, and she’s ignoring him, as usual, in favor of stapling things together and shoving them unceremoniously in folders.

Martin’s aggressively scribbling something in a notebook. Poetry. Jon can tell from the little concentrating frownlines, the way he bites his lip and looks up to stare at nothing.

His eyes land on Jon, though, and he squints in confusion. “J--Jon? I thought you were going--”

“Forgot something,” Jon says, as airily as he can manage, waving his hand in an attempt to dismiss any future questions.

“And it took you three hours to realize?” Tim asks, and Jon blinks in surprise.

“Three--? Uh. Yes. Like I said, I’m...out of it today.”

“Clearly,” Tim says, raising an eyebrow and turning to look at Sasha. 

It seems like they’re going to drop it, so he slips out into the tiny half-kitchen that always smells overwhelmingly like whatever disgusting frozen meals Tim brings for lunch most days, and tries not to wonder how he lost three hours, or to what. They keep silverware in a small drawer, and Jon wrenches it open, cursing the fact that it always jams, because when he finally pulls it all the way, it makes a horrifically loud jangling sound.

He shushes it, desperately, like that’s going to do anything, and as he closes his fingers around a pathetically inadequate and vaguely bent knife, Martin’s voice comes from behind him. He jolts so hard the knife flies out of his hand and clatters on the ground.

“Jon, what’s going--” Martin starts, but he stops when the knife falls. His eyes widen in something close to horror, probably coming to several wrong and damaging conclusions. 

“Martin, it’s not--”

“I  _ knew _ you hadn’t forgotten something, I mean, you don’t  _ eat _ here, so why would you go to the kitchen for--”

“Martin,” Jon says, firmly, and Martin stops talking, eyes burning with the stubborn ferocity Jon loves so much, even when it’s directed at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Martin asks. “I won’t tell them if you don’t want, but  _ tell me _ . I know you don’t--take me seriously or even  _ like  _ me or anything else, but--”

“Nothing’s wrong, Martin, I’m--”

“I’m not an idiot, Jon, no matter what you might think,” Martin snaps. “You’re  _ not  _ fine. I don’t know if it’s--if you’re having some kind of breakdown, or if Sasha was right and it’s drugs, or--or something else entirely, but. Maybe I can help.”

“Martin--”

“Why do you keep saying my name so  _ soft _ ?” Martin asks. “You’re not--you always say it like--” He trails off and shrugs, shaking his head. “You’re really off, is all I mean.”

“You deserve so much better than how I treat you,” Jon says, softly. He’s trying to emotionally disarm Martin so he can get out and get this all over with, and he slowly crouches to pick up the knife, never breaking eye contact. It’s manipulative, and he feels a little guilty, but it’s for everyone’s good. “You’re a wonderful person, Martin, and I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing,” Martin says, voice strangled. “Are you going to kill yourself? What’s--”

“It’s...it’s better if you just let me be,” Jon says. “There’s something I have to do.”

“With a dull knife.” Martin crosses his arms. 

“Yes,” Jon says, smiling as much as he can manage. “You have no reason to trust me, but I have a feeling if I ask you to, you might.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Please trust me, Martin.”

“Are you going to hurt someone? I just, I don’t--” Martin throws his hands up and sighs in frustration. “I don’t want to have to tell the cops I was the one who let you go with the knife, you know?”

“There are a lot of things beyond our understanding in the world. I’m going to try and stop them from hurting you, and Sasha, and Tim, and everyone else. Also, we both know you’d lie.”

Martin’s face flickers between looking like he wants to be offended and half-smiling in confirmation. “But, wait, that’s--”

“The statements are real,” Jon says, slipping past Martin and putting a hand on his shoulder. “All of it’s real.”

Martin makes a choking, gasping noise, and quickly catches up to Jon. “So--so  _ wait _ , how do you  _ know _ that--and I thought you were skeptical besides, what changed your--and what are you going to do about it with a fucking dinner knife?”

“I need you to just let me go, Martin, can you do that?” Jon asks, turning again to face him. He instinctively puts a hand around the back of Martin’s neck, a gesture that became routine and familiar over the weeks in Scotland, and Martin goes completely rigid, eyes wide. “I promise it’s all going to be fine. Might hurt the three of you a bit, but--but it’ll be okay.”

Martin stutters too hard to get words out, just stays there, frozen, as Jon pulls his hand away and heads for Elias’s office.

Jon allows himself a moment of hopelessness and anxiety and desperately missing the Martin that actually went through the last several years with--well, more without--him. He reaches Elias’s door, ignoring Rosie repeatedly asking him if he’s alright and if Elias knows he’s coming, and lets all of the despair turn to anger, to pure fucking hatred, to the memory of Elias’s words forcing their way out of his body and taking the world with them.

He shoves the door open, and slams and locks it behind him.

Elias doesn’t look surprised, though he pretends to, at least doing Jon the courtesy of playing along by raising his eyebrows.

“Jon,” he says, sounding detached and vaguely bemused. “What brings you here?”

“Don’t  _ do _ that,  _ Jonah _ ,” Jon spits, and Elias can’t stop the smirk from flickering across his face fast enough.

“Jonah?” he asks, cocking his head. “Jon, I think you must be confused, are you having some sort of--”

“ _ Shut up _ ,” Jon growls, crossing the room to Elias’s desk and leaning over it. Elias doesn’t move an inch, just lifts his chin and smiles. “No gaslighting, no  _ lying _ , no  _ knowing _ , nothing. Just stop fucking talking.”

“You know Rosie’s probably calling the police. Whatever you’re planning on doing, you may as well do it quickly.”

“I  _ said  _ stop talking,” Jon says, brandishing the knife. It  _ does  _ look fucking stupid, threatening a semi-immortal monster in a boring suit with a dinner knife, and Elias seems to realize that as well. He laughs, softly, shaking his head.

“Jon, that’s--I can’t believe you actually--wow.”

“I’ll--"

“Kill me? With that? Oh,  _ do _ go ahead. Are you absolutely sure it won’t hurt them? I’d hate to think of how much you’d hate yourself for making poor Martin  _ suffer _ . And  _ you _ , Jon, you are so deeply bound to the Eye, do you really--”

“I don’t care what happens to me,” Jon says, and Elias laughs, head tilted back.

“So  _ noble _ for a man who fed on the trauma of innocents and let down  _ all _ his friends over and over. Jonathan Sims wants to sacrifice himself for the world. Truly, what a grandiose and unbelievable end to the anti-hero’s arc. Fine, then. Kill me.” Elias spreads his arms and smiles at Jon. “I won’t stop you. I deserve it, I’m sure, and you’ll feel better.”

“This is a trick,” Jon says, conviction wavering, arm dropping slightly, blinking in confusion, angry with the Eye for shutting when he needs it, for choosing Elias over him. “What are you--what is this.”

“You walked into my office with a dull knife threatening to kill me, I told you to go ahead,” Elias says, plainly, shrugging. He leans forward slightly, taking ground back from Jon. “You’re smart enough to keep up, Archivist, aren’t you?”

“Why would you let me--”

“Because I’m a big believer in learning through failure,” Elias says. “And Jon, you will be doing  _ so  _ much learning that Oxford will  _ pale _ in comparison. So please. Kill me. Get it out of your system early.”

“No, I--” Jon says, starting to back away, putting the knife down on Elias’s desk.

“Oh, don’t make me  _ beg _ you.”

“I don’t want to--”

“You don’t want to kill me?” Elias asks. “Really. I would’ve ended the world, Jon. I would’ve destroyed everything you know. Forget what would’ve happened. I’m the reason for all your suffering in the last several years, and the suffering of your friends. I very consciously let Tim and Sasha die. Killed Gertrude, and Leitner, and anyone more competent and capable than you.”

Anger flares back up in Jon, but he tries not to let it win, since--or maybe this is reverse psychology, one of Elias’s fucked-up mindgames, maybe he knows he can make Jon back out by doing this. Jon picks the knife back up and presses the tip to Elias’s throat.

Elias smirks again. “Good. You know, if Martin survives me dying, I really think he’ll forgive you for murdering me. He really is like a kicked puppy. You can do all _ sorts _ of horrible things to him--but. Well. You know that already.”

“Shut. Up.”

“Make me,” Elias says. “Or, if you’d prefer, I could tell you how Sasha felt when the Stranger--”

“ _ I already know _ ,” Jon growls.

“Hmmm, yes. You dwell. I forgot.” Elias hums, miming being lost in thought. “Ah, but what about Tim? You weren’t quite yourself when he died. His last thought was--”

Jon viscerally, painfully, does not want to hear the end of that sentence. He tortures himself about Tim enough already without knowing--so he punches the knife hard into Elias’s neck, as far as it’ll go, and pulls it back out. 

Elias keeps smirking, infuriatingly, even as blood bubbles over his lips. Jon backs away, somewhat horrified by himself, and before he can even process, his back hits the wall.

Not a wall.

He thinks he could get really fucking sick of this, but that’s all he has time to think before the waves of painful, blinding, rainbow-y static crescendo so loud he can’t hear himself anymore, and he’s swept away.


	3. 2.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! This chapter really helped me with figuring out what the hell I'm doing, so that's cool, lol. I hope you enjoy!

Jon thrashes back into consciousness on Georgie’s couch. It smells like her old sweatshirts and the Admiral’s food and domesticity and  _ home _ and he desperately struggles for air, hand twisted in the blanket under him.

The Admiral looks up at him from the floor, head cocked, as if asking him what his problem is. He reaches out a shaky hand and scratches behind the Admiral’s ears. He purrs and nuzzles into Jon’s touch, and it would be calming if anything were capable of calming Jon at present.

He was expecting to be back in the Institute, and he’s disoriented badly enough without the shift in expectations. He wants to get up, figure out when he is and what’s happening and how he can fix it, but his body is desperately exhausted, and he just lays there, head tilted back, staring at the ceiling, mind racing so fast it seems like it’s standing still, no coherent thoughts coming out.

The Admiral jumps up and curls up on his stomach, and Jon absently pets him, trying to ground himself even a little. Killing Elias should’ve felt better. The smug bastard couldn’t even give him the satisfaction of old-fucking-fashioned revenge.

Maybe he should do it again. No preamble, no doubt, just--just doing it. Just walking in and killing him before he can say a word. Jon’s getting the overwhelming sense it won’t make a single centimetre of difference and will probably just throw him somewhere else, but it might feel good.

“Should I kill Elias?” Jon asks the Admiral, in his Pet Voice, and the Admiral mrows, sticks a paw out, and kneads Jon’s face, which he takes as a yes. “Thank you for the input, Admiral, I trust your strategic genius.”

“What are my two best bastard boys talking about?” Georgie asks, leaning on the back of the couch. Jon didn’t notice her come in. He’s fairly certain she only just got there, but. Well. He doesn’t really know anything, and it doesn’t feel like it particularly matters anymore, like he’s stuck in a dream with no cohesion or internal logic.

“The Admiral’s giving me advice,” Jon says, and Georgie smiles. It feels good to have her smiling at him, rather than, well. Rather than their last interaction before the end of the world. Another thing he’d like to fix, if he can.

“Yeah, he’s good at that.”

“Have to trust a high ranking, distinguished gentleman.” 

“Oh, you  _ have _ to,” Georgie says, then squints down at Jon. “Are you okay? You look worse than normal.”

“Thanks,” Jon says.

“Well, you do.”

“Georgie, you know I’m…” Jon starts, then sighs, rubbing his face with both hands, shifting the Admiral off him and enduring the indignant meowing, and sitting up. “I’m not trying to make your life harder, and I’m sorry that I am. I appreciate you doing all this for me. You’re...you’re a good person, and…I’m sorry.”

Georgie’s eyes widen in what looks like shocked horror. “Jon, if you start crying, I’m going to start crying, and I’m having a suspiciously good eyeliner day, so you’d better not.”

“I’m not going to  _ cry _ ,” Jon says, laughing breathlessly. “I just...I’m having a weird time.”

“You always are.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Look, can I help?” Georgie asks, sitting down next to Jon.

“No, you’ve...you’ve done enough,” Jon says. “Really, thank you.”

“You’re freaking me out a bit, if I’m honest,” Georgie says, softly. “I’m worried, Jon, I mean you’ve never...you haven’t properly told me why you’re here. I don’t...I don’t mind. I missed you, and I feel like I owe you for how I left things.”

Jon did actually have a conversation like this with Georgie, back...before, except it had been a lot more aggressive, since it happened after he showed up with fourth degree burns on his hand. This feels...better than that. Much better. Lot less yelling.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he says, softly. “That was both of us. And I’m sorry for my part in it.”

“Nah,” Georgie says, waving her hand. “You’re not a bad person, Jon. You’d never hurt anyone on purpose. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

She sounds so earnest Jon almost chokes, guilt making him violently ill. He can’t speak for a moment, just squeezes her hand. “I miss you,” he says, softly, and Georgie gives him a deeply strange look, eyebrows furrowing. He realizes how it sounds after he says it, but he just means he misses talking to her like this. Misses her believing in him even a little. Being his  _ friend _ . He’s so fucking sick of breaking everything.

Georgie gasps, softly. “You’re bleeding,” she says, reaching a hand up instinctively. Jon reaches up, wipes blood from under his eye, and squints at his finger, trying to figure out where and why--

It’s a rolling blackout this time. He can see it coming, darkness closing on his mind, and he starts to ask Georgie to stay with him, not let him go anywhere, but he’s not fast enough.

He’s at the Institute. It’s a cold day, and he’s not wearing a coat, and the wind blows straight through him. His face itches, and he reaches up to rub dried blood off his cheek.

He wants to kill Elias. The Eye blinks at Jon through every window of the Institute, and It knows he wants to kill Elias too, so there goes the element of surprise and satisfaction.

Talking to Georgie felt...good. Even as brief as it was, having a chance to apologize, to...it was  _ something _ .

He finds himself in the Archives before he really thinks it through. It’s not a blackout this time, he’s doing it consciously--he knows how he  _ wants _ this to go, it’s just unlikely it will.

Tim’s probably not even in. It’s late enough that...maybe he’s--

He looks up at Jon in shock when he walks in, and Jon’s heart sinks, even though this is ostensibly what he wanted. The shock in Tim’s eyes quickly turns into rage, and he rises from where he was sitting.

“What are you  _ doing _ here?”

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” Jon asks, because he really is regretting this. Properly apologizing to Tim felt like a good plan when he didn’t think he would even  _ be  _ there.

“ _ I  _ work here,  _ you _ killed a man,” Tim says. “What. Are. You. Doing. Here.”

“I just--uh--I wanted to talk to--” Jon starts, and Tim’s face sets firmly into a scowl.

“You’ve done the fuck enough to Martin already.”

“To-- _ what _ ?” Jon asks, surprised at the shift in direction, squinting at Tim. “What have I done to--”

“He’s  _ so _ in love with you, and he trusted you, even after the  _ shit _ you pulled on us, even after Sasha, and you  _ cannot _ drag him into whatever--whatever’s wrong with you,” Tim says, shaking his head. “No, I’m calling the cops, I can’t--I can’t do whatever this is.”

“Tim, please--please don’t do that,” Jon says, putting a hand up. “I was going to say I wanted to talk to you.”

Tim cocks his head, squinting suspiciously. “And why the fuck would you want to do  _ that _ ?”

“Because I’m sorry,” Jon says. “For...literally everything, I’m sorry. There’s not an hour that goes by that I don’t hate myself for what happened to Sasha, I  _ promise _ . And you…” He bites his lip and sighs. “I treated you  _ horribly _ . And Martin. And I’m sorry. I was--I wasn’t myself, I’m not really...I’m not strong like you are, Tim, I couldn’t just take the worms in stride like you, the whole thing just--just shattered me.”

“Yeah, I actually wasn’t doing great after that myself,” Tim says. “Probably would’ve been better if my boss hadn’t been fucking--”

“ _ Yes _ . I know. I know. And I’m saying that I am  _ so _ \--I’m so sorry. I always wanted us to be friends, and then it was too late.”

“I’m sure whatever you’re doing, you think you’re doing it for the right reasons,” Tim says. “That’s about the best I can say for you.”

“I’ll take it,” Jon says. “Look, I don’t expect you to forgive me. For any of it. But--consider it.”

“Sure,” Tim says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You should go now, Jon, you know they’re looking for you.”

“I know.” Jon sighs. “I never really got to say this, but I’m sorry about your brother.”

“ _ What _ ?” Tim asks, softly, freezing in place. “No. No, you don’t know about Danny, why would you--what are you  _ talking _ about? Is this from--from you  _ stalking _ me? What is this?”

“No--no, I just--”

“Shut. Up.” Tim takes a few slow steps towards Jon, forcing him against a wall. “You know, I used to really like you? When we were all stuck in research together, I thought you were kind of cool. Different. Smart. I thought you’d be the kind of person who was probably fun to talk to about philosophical bullshit or--I don’t know. I guess I also thought that _thing_ was Sasha for months, so maybe I’m just a really shit judge of people.”

“You’re right,” Jon says, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and this was absolutely fucking stupid of me.”   


“No, you don’t get to go that easy,” Tim says. “How do you know about Danny?”

“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“You really  _ are _ one of those spooky assholes now, aren’t you?” Tim asks, laughing in disbelief. “Was it from stalking me? Because that’s just--”

“No, Tim, it wasn’t,” Jon says, sighing, because fuckit, what does he have left to lose? This somehow went even worse than expected. “It’s because I’m…” He trails off, trying to word it reasonably and then giving up. “I’m from the future.”

Tim scoffs, so loudly it seems to surprise even him. “Bullshit.”

“You’re feeling hopeless and reckless and so you’re hunting the Circus, because you want revenge. You don’t have anything left to live for, and you can’t trust that the others are still actually themselves, because you didn’t notice when Sasha got replaced,” Jon says, in more or less one breath. 

“You’re not making a better case for yourself,” Tim says, his face set in neutral, anger burning in his eyes. 

“You’re going to die in an explosion that will destroy Nikola Orsinov.” Tim looks blank at the name. “Grimaldi.”

Tim’s eyebrows shoot up before he can stop them. “But it’s dead? Grimaldi dies.”

“Yes,” Jon says. “Well, as much as--as much as it  _ can _ .”

“Then it’s worth it,” Tim says, simply, shrugging one shoulder. “I don’t mind.”

“ _ I  _ do,” Jon says, laughing breathlessly. “Tim, however guilty I feel about Sasha--” He trails off, shrugging, because he can’t really finish the sentence.

“Your guilt isn’t my problem, killing that fucking clown is,” Tim says. “So. Sorry. Wait, no. I’m not.”

“Okay,” Jon mouths, unable to get sound out as Tim turns to walk away.

“You should go. I’m gonna call the police in five minutes,” Tim says over his shoulder, and Jon watches him disappear down a hall before he leaves, unsure of where exactly he’s going. Mostly he wants to just fall on his knees and  _ scream _ about not being able to fix it, about--about making it just as bad if not worse.

Something keeps him standing, like a string stuck between his shoulderblades, keeping him upright and moving against all odds. 

He doesn’t care if Elias knows he’s coming. He’s going to take whatever satisfaction he can get.

Rosie calls the police immediately as Jon approaches Elias’s office, shoving the doors open with both arms and launching himself over Elias’s desk at him, immediately reaching up to strangle Elias, who laughs as Jon’s hands close around his neck.

“Make this  _ stop _ ,” Jon shouts, a frightening edge to his voice that even he’s surprised by. “Make it fucking stop, make it--I want to see Martin again.”

“You can see Martin whenever you--” Elias starts, but he chokes silent as Jon twists his hands tighter. 

“You know what I mean, you pompous piece of Eye-veined--” Jon starts.

“What makes you so sure I have control over it?” Elias wheezes, barely a high-pitched, breathy scream.

“Because--because you--”

“You really  _ will  _ believe anything,” Elias says, and rage flashes hotter in Jon,  _ sick _ of the lying and manipulation, sick of the person Elias has made him. He squeezes tighter.

He’s not sure how long it takes for Elias to die. He sort of zones out, losing himself to the adrenaline drowning out his mind, his own heart racing in his ears. 

Jon feels his own trachea collapse and claws at his neck, dropping Elias’s limp body. He chokes for air, but can’t get any in. As the oxygen leaves his brain, his eyes flutter shut, and something pulses behind them, psychedelically bright and twisting, an infinite passage ahead of him, and he feels himself fall through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3


	4. 3.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this'll make sense eventually (probably), guys! Hang tight!

Jon screams awake on the shitty bed in the Archives, his hand around his neck, convulsing slightly, throat raw. He takes several long, deep breaths, reminding himself that he  _ can _ breathe, his airways are open, he’s not dying on the floor of Elias’s office. That--didn’t happen? It did, though, it definitely did. He’s starting to get mental whiplash, and his brain feels like it’s wrapped with barbed wire, all thought tearing it to bloody shreds.

He has no idea what time it is, since no light gets into the Archives, but he’s starting to suspect it doesn’t even fucking matter anymore.

He’s not going to kill Elias this time. He has no interest in reliving that, though Elias’s words stick in his mind-- _ what makes you so sure I have control? _ Jon assumed that--well, it was Elias’s ritual he interrupted, and this is his punishment.

Elias is probably fucking with him even harder with that. He resolves to ignore it, to not even speak to Elias if he can help it, since it won’t make anything better or easier. He needs to figure out when he is, to see if there’s anything he can do, anyone he can save, any single modicum of difference he can make.

He manages to get himself to his feet and wanders barefoot out into the Archives, where Sasha’s sitting at her computer, biting her lip and furiously typing. Jon squints down at his own arms, which are full of familiar worm scars, dotting his skin like meaningless constellations.

So that shouldn’t be Sasha, and yet he’s fairly certain it is. Maybe the Stranger could work its twisted trickery twice, but--it looks like Sasha, it moves like her, and when it looks up and says “Hi, Jon,” it sounds like her.

“Hi,” Jon says, unable to stop staring at her, starting to squint, trying to find the cracks in the illusion. 

“You okay?” she asks.

“Strange dreams,” Jon says.

“Did you sleep here again?” Sasha asks, voice soft, the way you’d speak to a wounded puppy. He feels a flicker of resentment, but shoves it down.

“Yes,” Jon says, sighing. “Before you say anything, I know.”

“We’re just worried,” she says. “I mean, Prentiss was  _ a lot _ . It’s fine if you need help, Jon, you just have to tell us.” 

She absently raises her hand to adjust her ponytail, and Jon notices the worm scars on her arms as well. Nausea hits, confusion, dissonance. If Sasha was with them when Prentiss attacked, then--then what else is different?

Tim walks in holding two coffees, one of which he sets down on Sasha’s desk. “Morning, Jon,” he says, smiling at Jon. “Another daily meeting of the Hole-y Trinity.”

Tim’s being  _ nice _ , which surprises and pains Jon slightly. So it’s early enough that Tim hasn’t caught onto the stalking. Good to know.

He finds himself blankly staring at Tim, and blinks out of it. “Good morning,” he says, finally. It’s all he can find to say.

“You gonna put shoes on or are you roleplaying a hobbit?” Sasha asks, brightly.

“Don’t act like those things are  _ shoes _ ,” Tim says, pointing at Sasha’s slippers with his foot. “You have no leg to stand on.”

“I have two, actually, Timothy, and they’re both very comfortable and fuzzy and soft.”

“Your legs are fuzzy and soft? I take it you haven’t shaved in a while?” 

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Sasha says, smiling at her computer. “This is a hostile environment.”

“I’ll show you hostile,” Tim says, waggling his eyebrows. 

It hurts Jon, realizing that they seem...very  _ together _ . That if Sasha hadn’t been replaced, they could’ve been happy, or at least closer to it. He really is a fucking destroyer of worlds.

A man comes out of the tiny kitchen holding a mug of tea. Jon blinks at him, trying to figure out if he knows him. He thinks he might, there’s something familiar in the eyes, but all in all, he’s fairly certain he’s never seen him before.

“Hi, Jon!” he says, cheerily, and Jon squints in surprise.

“Uh, hi…?” he says. “Sorry, do I--do I know you?”

At that, Tim and Sasha go quiet, both looking at him. The man looks somewhat concerned too, and he looks to the other two. 

“Jon…” Sasha says. 

“He’s joking,” Tim says, hesitantly. “Right, Jon? This is just a weird bit?”

So someone new works in the Archives in this version of reality. Fine. He can roll with it. “Um. Y--yes. Sorry. Didn’t sleep well.”

“While Martin does occasionally  _ dress _ like wallpaper, you can’t actually  _ treat _ him like wallpaper,” Tim says, and the man rolls his eyes.

“Nice, Tim,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Ma-- _ Martin _ ?” Jon asks, before he can stop himself, because he knows more or less every inch of Martin Blackwood, and this man isn’t him. Unless it is…?

_ Is _ it Martin? Maybe--maybe everything that’s happening to Jon is--is  _ fucking _ with him, destroying his memory, corrupting it like a hard drive, maybe that  _ is _ Martin, maybe he’s well and truly lost Martin’s face, and that’s a horrible thought.

“Yes…?” Martin (?) says, smiling in apologetic confusion, and that’s a very Martin expression, so--so maybe? Maybe. Maybe Jon’s just lost his mind entirely.

He could--there are ways he could make sure. Martin has scars on his upper thighs, that’s an identifying marker, but it’s not as if Jon can demand to see his thighs, that’s--and what if he’s wrong, besides? What if he’s making that up? What if he doesn’t know a single true thing about Martin, and his mind’s constructed it all?

“Did you get a haircut?” Jon offers, weakly, as a stab at explaining his reactions. Too weak. Sasha looks inscrutable but a little worried, and Tim is watching him like a shockingly violent horror movie, eyebrows all the way up. 

Probably-Martin laughs nervously. “Uh…” he says, and there’s a flash of something cornered in his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Really?” Sasha asks, turning to him. “I didn’t notice.”

“Jon’s just very tuned into Martin’s appearance, I guess,” Tim says, winking at Probably-Martin. 

“Guess so,” Jon says. Playing along to make Jon look slightly less batshit is a very Martin sort of kindness, and it tears his heart apart that he doubted it was him, that--that he can’t recognize him anymore.

The Eye shows him nothing when he tries to pry it open. He’s flying blind on regular human perception, which he’s never been particularly amazing at, and he feels a swell of betrayal, that the god he destroyed himself to feed has gone completely cold. 

“Do you, uh, do you want tea?” Martin asks, tilting his head towards the kitchen. 

“Sure,” Jon says, and he follows Martin in, Tim and Sasha’s eyes fixed on them until they disappear around the corner. 

“Are you okay, Jon?” Martin asks, pouring hot water into a mug and dunking a teabag in.

That’s not how Martin makes tea. Martin is routine and unerring and he makes fucking good tea, and this isn’t his ritual. He’s seen Martin do it drunk, dead tired, on the verge of tears--it’s always the same.

The doubt claws at him again.

“Who are you?” Jon asks, finally, as Maybe-Martin hands him the mug. 

“Jon--” Maybe-Martin starts, and Jon shakes his head.

“No, I should’ve known, you don’t--you don’t say my name right. Your voice is wrong, you’re not--what are you? Because you’re not Martin,” Jon says.

“Jon, I’m really worried for you,” Not-Martin says, voice small. “I don’t know what’s happening to you, I know--I know it’s been hard since Prentiss, I know you’ve been off, I mean, fuck--who wouldn’t be, you got drilled into by  _ worms _ . But--but I think...I think you should talk to someone, I think you need help, it’s--"

“ _ Stop _ ,” Jon growls. “I’m fucking  _ fine _ .”

“You’re telling me I’m not me, Jon, that’s not  _ fine,  _ that's being delusional. ”

“Where were you when Prentiss attacked? You don’t have any scars.”

“You were  _ there _ .”

“Refresh my memory,” Jon says.

“I--uh, Tim came in from lunch, I went out to warn him, I talked to Elias, I ended up in Artifact Storage?” 

Jon’s heart drops, dread and despair churning his guts. “So Martin’s dead,” he says, flatly, unable to make himself put any sort of emotion into it. Sasha’s fine, Tim’s happy, Martin’s dead and there’s a thing in his place pretending to be him.

“What are you  _ talking _ about?” Not-Martin asks.

“You can drop the act,” Jon says, waving a hand dismissively. “I know this game and I don’t want to play it again.”

“What  _ game _ ? I’m--I’m Martin, I’m alive, as far as I can tell, I don’t--I don’t know what to tell you,” Not-Martin says, shrugging desperately. “You’re  _ really  _ scaring me.”

“Oh, fuck off, don’t act like you feel fear,” Jon says, shaking his head. “I could make you, under better circumstances, and I would  _ love _ to for what you did to him.”

“Jon--”

“Don’t.”

“How can I prove that I’m me?” Not-Martin asks, a desperate edge to his voice, eyes wide and apparently near-tears, and the acting is so convincing that Jon doubts himself again, starting to change his mind--just because he was in Artifact Storage doesn’t mean that the table got him like it did Sasha. Things don’t always have to happen the same.

“I don’t--”

“I love you, Jon,” Maybe-Martin says, breathlessly. “I--probably I shouldn’t say that, but I just--I want you to be okay, and you’re obviously not, and I--” He trails off, shrugging.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, simply, squinting at the ground and trying to--trying to figure out what he believes.

He can’t. Not yet. He turns and walks out, setting the untouched mug of tea down on the counter.

He thinks he sees Maybe-Martin smirk out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t trust himself enough to be sure. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure it's fine.


	5. 3.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very Oops All Dialogue and I apologize. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

There is only one person in the Institute who will know, for sure, whether Martin is Martin or not. Jon doesn’t trust him to tell the truth, but even Elias’s lying will be an  _ answer _ , and anything has to feel better than not knowing.

It’s a last resort, though, and before he makes a third, dreaded trip up to Elias’s office, he tries on his own. He sits at his desk and closes his eyes and tries to find that door in his mind that used to be huge and neon and unavoidable, the one with the ocean behind it, but it’s apparently gone, or at least small enough now that he couldn’t get through it even if he tried. The Eye is closing to him, wounded by his betrayal, and he wants to beg it, he has to know, but he still has some pride left.

He growls in frustration and gets back up, stalking out of his office, still barefoot. Maybe-Martin gives him a small smile and a smaller wave, and Jon tries to shrug it off without thinking about it too hard. Sasha follows him as he leaves the Archives. 

“Jon, hey, Jon, hold up,” she says, and he doesn’t slow. She gets in the elevator with him. “Come on. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Jon says, clearing his throat and not meeting her eyes, not wanting to think about how he might have to trade her for Martin, about how that isn’t even a choice for him, how  _ fucking _ selfish he is. 

“What’s up with you and Martin?” Sasha asks. “Jon. Seriously. I’m not an idiot. You genuinely didn’t recognize him. Is something going on? Did all the CO2 give you brain damage or something? You can talk to me. And Tim. We want to help.”

“You can’t,” Jon says, shaking his head, laughing darkly and pressing a hand over his mouth to cut it off. “You can’t, Sasha. And I am  _ so _ sorry.”

“For what?”

“For--” Jon starts, but leaves the  _ letting you die and not knowing _ unsaid, because that wouldn’t exactly go well, and she’d probably forgive him anyway, even if she believed him, and he doesn’t think he can particularly handle that right now. He thinks she  _ might _ believe him, though, and he’d always wished he’d had her there for support and insight through everything. “Look, Sasha, if I said I was from another reality, what would you say?”

“I would ask what was different in your reality, specifically regarding Martin,” Sasha says, crossing her arms. “And also me, because you have been looking at me  _ downright _ oddly.”

“So you’d believe me?”

“After Prentiss and Michael, I’ll believe anything with enough decent proof, and something’s clearly up with you,” Sasha says. “So?  _ Are _ you saying you’re from another reality?”

The elevator doors open, and Jon slams and holds the close door button. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Sasha says, nodding, face unchanging. Jon  _ misses _ her. “How’d you get here, then?”

“Fantastic question,” Jon says. 

“What’s the deal with Martin?”

Jon sighs, running the hand not holding the button back through his hair. “Also a fantastic question. He’s...I can’t actually tell if he’s Martin or not. There’s this...there was this thing in my original reality--”

“This is so Star Trek,” Sasha says, in a slightly awed whisper, eyes glowing.

“--sure. There was something where I came from that could...replace people. Not necessarily look or sound like them, but consume them and sort of...playact as them. And no one would notice. I think that’s what happened to Martin when Prentiss invaded.”

“Fuck,” Sasha says, eyebrows raised. “But you can’t tell?”

“It’s working on me, I--I  _ should _ be able to tell, but my mind is convincing me that--that maybe I’ve lost it and that  _ is _ Martin, but…” He sighs. “I miss him badly enough I think I could believe anything.”

“Wait.” Sasha puts both her hands on Jon’s shoulders and looks him directly in the eye. “I’m sorry, but I feel a moral obligation to ask the Tim question. There’s a world where you’re banging Blackwood?”

Jon exhales in something close to a laugh, looking away. “Not  _ banging _ , exactly, but.”

“Holy shit.”

“More pressing matters, Sasha,” Jon says.

“No, I mean, this is gonna take me a second.” 

“Has he been acting strangely? Have you noticed?” Jon asks, and Sasha tilts her head, considering.

“He’s been a little less hopeless about you, I guess? Less...uh...less pushovery? Is that mean to say?” 

“That’s it?”

“I mean, I was operating under the assumption he was Martin, so I haven’t been particularly  _ looking _ for abnormal behavior, sorry,” Sasha says, shrugging. 

“No, that’s...that’s fine,” Jon says, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I’m going to ask Elias.”

“Why would Elias know?” Sasha asks, squinting, and Jon laughs. Can’t help himself.

“Oh, no reason,” he says, breathlessly, waving a hand.

“No, nope, you do  _ not _ get to pull that shit,” Sasha says.

“Elias is secretly Jonah Magnus possessing the body of an unfortunate stoner who is, at this point, probably very dead. Also, he serves an all-knowing god that preys on fear and trauma,” Jon says, voice fairly flat, and he watches Sasha’s reaction.

“That...makes sense,” she says, after a moment of consideration. “Wow. Ol’ Jimmy Magma himself.”

“You’re--we’re--all bound to him, as well. No one can quit, or hurt him, or, presumably, the Institute itself, though…” Jon says, squinting, trying to remember if there was a rule about damaging the Institute. He shakes it off. 

“That absolutely, truly sucks.” 

“Yes,” Jon says, snorting, the nonchalance of her reaction catching him off guard. “It really does.”

“So, to recap: you’re from another reality, where you are miraculously finally dating Martin, and you don’t know how you got here or why,” Sasha starts, pausing for Jon to nod in affirmation. “Okay. Our Martin may or may not actually be Martin, but Elias is definitely an evil Victorian twink who’s a voodoo doll for all of us.”

“Fast learner,” Jon says, with a hint of a smirk.

“You really have no idea why this is happening to you?”

Jon sighs. “Some, but I don’t see any reason to the realities or times I end up in.”

“So this isn’t your first?”

“Third.”

“Also, you’re dodging. What did you do, Jon? What’s your idea of why this is happening?” Sasha asks, crossing her arms

“The god Elias serves…” Jon starts, staring at the floor instead of Sasha. 

“You serve it too,” she finishes, voice soft. 

“The Archivist is like a priest to the Eye, in a way, and the Archives are its temple,” Jon says. “I didn’t really have a choice.”

“I understand,” Sasha says. “We’re all beholden to shit bigger than us. As long as you don’t hurt anyone--”

“It inherently hurts people, Sasha, and I--” Jon squeezes a handful of his own hair as stress relief and decides against mentioning the people he fed on. “I stopped it--the Eye, I mean--from doing something incredibly destructive, and I suspect it’s punishing me."

“So it’s all-powerful? I thought it was just all-knowing.”

“It is. It--its abilities are more or less limited to knowledge.”

“Then how is it sending you through spacetime?” Sasha asks, and Jon raises an eyebrow, considering.

“That’s...a good point. I think it might have help from a different god. Though I’m not sure that makes sense, considering it was going to establish dominance over all of them, I…” Jon trails off, squinting at the ground, trying to think it through, but everything tangles in his mind. Martin’s excellent at unraveling his thoughts for him when he can’t do it himself, but, well.

“I’ll let you go talk to Elias, but, uh,” Sasha starts, then sighs. “The thing you think got Martin.”

“Yes.”

“Who did it get in your world?” she asks, and by her tone, Jon’s pretty sure she already knows the answer.

“Sasha, it’s--”

“That’s fine,” she says. “You don’t have to apologize for something that didn’t happen to me.”

“Alright,” Jon says, softly.

“How bad did Tim take it?” She sounds like she’s taking a stab at being casual.

“Very badly would be a massive understatement.”

“How’s he, where you’re from?”

“Dead,” Jon says, biting his lip hard, and Sasha gasps, quiet and sharp.

“Okay,” she says. “Well. We won’t let that happen this time.”

“No,” Jon says, shaking his head. “Not again.”

“Well. Good luck with monster boss.” Sasha smiles reassuringly at him, and he makes himself smile back.

“Uh, Sasha, could I--” Jon starts, and before he can finish, she hugs him, squeezing tight, like she read his mind. “Thank you.”

“What are you gonna do if it’s not Martin?” Sasha asks, pulling back.

“Yet another question I wish I had an answer to.”

“Is it alright if I tell Tim everything?”

“I’m not your father, Sasha, do whatever you want,” Jon says, managing a smile. 

“See you,” she says, with a little awkward wave. He wishes he knew he could say the same.

He finally releases the door close button and steps out of the elevator into the top floor of the Institute. As he walks towards Elias’s office, the world starts to tilt on its axis, until he has the uncanny feeling of walking on the wall. It disorients him enough that he feels like he has to go slowly to avoid falling.

Jon doesn’t bother knocking, and Elias blinks up from one of his fucking spreadsheets, looking as innocent as can be. “Jon?” he says, sounding actually surprised. “Come, sit down.”

“Don’t play this game,” Jon says, sighing, so tired it physically aches. “I’m not sorry about last time, but I won’t do it again.”

“What are you talking about?” Elias asks, a flash of genuine confusion in his eyes. Jon catches and understands it--he’s not used to not knowing things.

“Can’t you just…” Jon says, gesturing in the general direction of his own head. 

“I’m trying--” Elias starts, then cuts himself off, squinting. “How would you--what’s going on.”

“Stop it, Jonah, I’m through with this, I need to ask you something and then I’ll leave peacefully.”

“How do you know my name?” Elias asks, and Jon feels the tickle of compulsion at the back of his throat, but swallows it, horror dawning on him. Elias really doesn’t know, and the Eye really isn’t telling him. 

“Fuck,” Jon says, out loud. He can’t help himself. He hated Elias tormenting him but is aware that having someone else go through this with him was objectively better than being alone. “Look, just--is Martin  _ Martin _ , or did the Stranger get him?”

Some of Elias’s confidence seems to flood back at the question. Something he knows the answer to. “What an odd question.”

“Don’t. I’m not fucking around, Elias,” Jon growls, and he’s fairly sure he’s projecting the aura of someone who’s not to be fucked with. “I know everything else. You might as well tell me this.”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“He died alone,” Elias says, simply, and Jon gasps like he’s been hit, but slow, shaky, his body slightly shuddering with the strain of trying to avoid the image. Elias doesn’t let him. “If it makes you feel better, the fear didn’t last long. He thought about you. Hoped you wouldn’t be the one to find his body but also sort of wished you would. He wanted you to cry about him.” 

“You can stop,” Jon says, and he means it to be firm and threatening, but it comes out weak and pleading.

“He loved you  _ fiercely _ , and you treated him horribly, and you will  _ never _ be able to fix it. He was alone his whole life. There’s no one to miss him but you. It’s almost like he never existed. You might as well let the Stranger keep playing. It’s the only way he’ll ever be memorialized.”

“I fucking hate you,” Jon says, and Elias laughs, softly.

“Language, Jonathan, this is a respectable institution. Wouldn’t want any bad reviews from statement givers. Well, any  _ more _ .”

Jon thinks about how satisfying it would be to kill him again for a brief flash before he remembers the pain. There has to be an easier way to be sent to some other reality, one where Martin’s still alive. It’s selfish, of course it is, but he believes in Sasha’s ability to keep herself and Tim in one piece, and he doesn’t particularly want to live in a world without Martin.

He has a suspicion of how to reset. 

“Kill me,” he tells Elias, who does a bit of a double-take, eyebrows shooting up.

“No,” Elias says, scoffing and half-shrugging. “Why would I do that?”

“Why do you do anything you do?”

“Jon, if you’re that devastated about Martin, there’s any number of bridges and buildings in this city available to you.” Elias looks wildly smug and Jon desperately wants to punch him but has a feeling that would be giving him the satisfaction.

Jon doesn’t even have a response to that, just exhales in frustration and stalks out of Elias’s office, slamming the door behind him. 

He might as well destroy the thing pretending to be Martin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for the Saddest Monster Murder.


	6. 3.3/4.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So I realize this fic is pretty dark and I'm not used to writing stuff this dark for an audience, so I'm going to start doing content warnings in the beginning notes for every chapter. Anyway! Hope you enjoy.
> 
> CW: Non-consensual kissing (not described in a lot of detail), identity loss, talking again about Martin's death (less upsetting than last chapter I'm pretty sure)

Tim stops Jon the second he reaches the Archives, putting himself physically in Jon’s way, a hand splayed against his chest to block him from getting any farther. “Uh, hi, Other Boss, so, I have several questions about the incomprehensible shit Sasha’s just been relaying to me, and they’re not questions she has answers to, so--”

“Not now, Tim,” Jon says, exhaustion and dread cracking his voice.

“No, just, um, how do I die. I know that’s the thing you’re not supposed to ask in time travel movies, because of self-fulfilling prophecies, etcetera, but I--I gotta know,” Tim says, face set. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jon says. “It’s not going to happen this time, everything’s different for the you here than it was for the you I knew.”

Tim bites his lip in frustration. “But what if it isn’t?”

“It is. You have Sasha.”

“I--wait,” Tim says, squinting. “Why _wouldn’t_ I have Sasha?”

“She didn’t--?” Jon starts, but then cuts off, because of course she didn’t. He forgets sometimes that he and Sasha share a lot in common, namely, in this case, keeping troubling shit from the people you love so they don’t have to deal with it. “Never mind.”

“Ohhhhhh, no, no, no, nope, you can’t do that,” Tim says, gently pushing back as Jon tries to pass by him. “What happened to your Sasha, Jon.”

“Ask her,” Jon snaps. “I’m not going to feed the End like this. My mistake for even letting it get this much of a hold.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds terrifying, so good, don’t, but--” Tim sighs in frustration. “Look, I don’t fucking advertise this, but--something freaky and supernatural and terrifying and kind of beautiful killed--”

“--your brother, Danny, yes, I know,” Jon finishes, unable to keep himself from just sounding irritated. “I know, Tim, and I know you’re scared of losing other people like that, I know. Knowing what happened to other versions of yourself and Sasha won’t do anything. It won’t change a fucking thing, and I have more important shit to deal with at present.”

“Glad you’re still an asshole in every dimension,” Tim says, scowling. 

“I’m _trying_ ,” Jon says, exasperation flooding his voice. “I’m trying _so_ hard. I don’t know what’s going to fix it for you, I don’t know what’s going to make it worse, I don’t _know_ . Don’t act like you’re much easier to deal with than I am. I’ve _seen_ you at your worst.”

“I’m sure you deserved it,” Tim says.

“I’m sure I did too,” Jon says. “Can I go?"

“I don’t know, Jon, you’re the boss,” Tim says, dropping his hand and stepping aside, shaking his head and walking away. “Hey, Sasha! You have a lot of explaining!”

Jon sighs and rubs his face, clenching his fists as he brings his hands back down, slamming them into his thighs. He misses Tim. Would love to have a pleasant, not-remotely-hostile interaction with him. Would love to not just get stuck in the same cycles and patterns every time. 

His mind drifts, as usual, back to Martin. His Martin, who’s probably still out having amicable one-sided conversations with the good cows back in Scotland. Thinking about Martin asking a cow where it got its hair done makes Jon smile, for a brief flicker of a moment. Gives him a brief moment of warmth and affection that he hopes will be enough to get him through what’s coming.

Not-Martin looks up from his desk with a smile that becomes a cruel mockery of Martin’s the longer Jon looks at it. “Hi, Jon,” it says, softly. The accent’s off, like an American playing ultra-Sean Bean Northern. Nowhere close to Martin’s, and somehow Jon fell for it.

He feels a twinge of self-hatred again that he couldn’t immediately tell, that he was stupid enough to buy into the Stranger’s cruel act. His thoughts drift to the real Martin from this world, and he’s glad the Eye’s shut for him, because he knows he wouldn’t be able to stop himself watching and replaying it all. His heart breaks even thinking abstractly about it.

“You can stop playing,” Jon says. “Not really that good of an actor, as it turns out.”

“Jon…” Not-Martin says, and fine, maybe it _has_ nailed that little brow furrow, that soft worry. But its eyes aren’t even the right color, and the expression makes Jon nauseous on its stolen face.

“I’m serious. I know what you are.” Jon sighs, running a hand back through his hair. “Are you auditioning for a part in the Unknowing? Is that what all this is--was--about? Desperate for your god to give you a leading role like Orsinov?”

“You’re not as good at intimidation as you think you are,” it says, and smiles with far too many teeth. “Sounds good, but you’re bullshitting.”

“You’re not as good at acting as you think you are.”

“Ouch,” it says, making a mock-hurt face. “You sure about that? Not as if Martin Blackwood’s an intense, three-dimensional role. Just a sad, lonely fucker with a desperate crush and a literally dead-end job. He’s all--” It puts on its breathy Martin impression. “--are you okay, Jon? Is there anything you want, Jon? I masturbate furiously about you every night because I know you’ll never say a nice word to me, Jon, I would burn myself to the ground if you were cold, Jon, are you _sure_ you’re okay, Jon?”

“You’re wrong,” Jon says, voice dead, trying to ignore it. 

It makes a high-pitched skeptical noise. “I don’t know, I researched the part pretty thoroughly when I killed him and stole his life.”

“Go. Leave the Institute. Fuck off and stop playing Martin,” Jon says, because he realized too late that he has no weapon, no ability to use the Eye, no advantage over this thing. Just his shitty, weak, failing body.

“Or what?” it asks, cocking its head and batting its eyelashes in over-acted curiosity. It puts its Martin impression back on. “You wouldn’t hurt me, Jon, would you? Do you really hate me that much? I thought--”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jon shrieks, picking up a loose folder and throwing it in a pathetic display of overwhelming frustration. “Fuck you. _Fuck_ you, you _pathetic--_ ”

“Jon, come on, you’re behaving like a child,” it says, pouting. “You’re the Archivist! Gertrude had dignity, where’s yours?”

“It died with Martin,” Jon spits, closing the distance between them. This isn’t a fight he can win, but if he loses, he resets, at least that’s what he assumes, and hopefully-- _hopefully_ \--

It shoots out a hand and grabs Jon by the neck, forcing his chin up, but doesn’t squeeze. Not choking him. “You’re already acting pretty fucking odd to the rest of them, aren’t you? And you’ve blown my cover as poor, sweet Martin. Playing the Archivist--now _that’s_ a challenge.”

“ _No_ ,” Jon says, instinctually, because he wants this thing to kill him but not like this, not--not in a way that endangers this Sasha and Tim--he’s stupid and impulsive and makes everything worse and the Eye won’t protect him--

“You know, I might as well close out Martin’s arc by giving him what he always wanted,” it says, and kisses Jon, in a cruel, horrid mockery of a kiss, teeth tearing at Jon’s lips. Jon feels as it digs into him, into his being, consuming and destroying--he forgets where he is, first, and then he forgets why the name Martin means anything to him, and then everything disintegrates and the world stops being the world, there are no words or explanations for the lights above their heads or the ground under their feet, and he is nameless, a signified with no signifier, and there is nothing that has ever been anything to him, and the thing digging sharp teeth into him pulls away and sighs in a familiarly exasperated way as it wipes blood off its lips and lets him fall meaningless to the floor.

He lies there. He tries to figure out why he’s lying there. He tries to figure out what lying means and where there is and how he used to be able to move his body, if he ever did. All he knows is the animal fear in his ribcage, pounding through his veins. He twitches, and then he ceases to exist entirely, the dim light left in his skull flickering out.

* * *

He wakes screaming with the taste of blood on his lips, and he doesn’t stop screaming as strong arms wrap around him and a familiar voice gently shushes him and soft hands brush hair behind his ears.

He stops for air. Lets the world come into view. He knows places again, and specifically he knows this place. He knows the man curled around him desperately trying to calm him down. He knows the musty smell of the air, he can name every object in the room, and he’s himself, and _it’s alright, Jon, it’s okay, just a really bad dream, yeah?_

Martin. Martin’s voice, his real voice, it’s him, it’s his shoulder Jon’s face is pressed into, it’s Daisy’s mattress they’re tangled on. 

“Martin,” he says, pushing back, reaching up to put his hand on Martin’s face. Martin nuzzles into it, presses the hand between his cheek and his shoulder. 

“Hey,” Martin says. “Lost you there. Are you okay?”

“I love you,” Jon says. This could all have been a dream, this could be his Martin, they’re in the safehouse and--and maybe it’s okay, maybe it’s over, maybe that was all just a cryptic warning. 

Martin makes a surprised, soft little noise. “I love you too.”

“I’m so glad you’re here, Martin, and I’m so--you have no idea how sorry I am for how I treated you, I--” Jon starts, sliding his hand down to brace against the back of Martin’s neck. “I’m so lucky you love me.”

“Where’s this coming from?” Martin asks, smiling faintly in disbelief. 

“Bad fucking dream,” Jon says. 

“Tell me,” Martin says, reaching up to brush a strand of translucent silk out of his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :):):):):)


	7. 4.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is ROUGH, especially considering the new episode--promise that this absolutely was not on purpose. But hey! We're getting way closer to what's actually going on here! 
> 
> CW: gaslighting, manipulation, referenced major character death, not-graphic eye bleeding

Martin presses a cup of tea into Jon’s hands, brushes Jon’s hair behind his ear, and sits crosslegged on the bed facing him. “So--so it reset when you killed Elias, but also when you died?” he asks, and Jon nods, shrugging.

“I don’t know what the rules were, exactly, but--”

“Yeah, because it was a dream,” Martin says. “I mean, it sounds terrifying, but...none of it really tracks, right? The door you fell through sounds like the Spiral, but why would the Spiral care if you messed with an Eye ritual? The way you kept ending up at the Institute is very Web, but same question--they all want to destroy each other, right, so…”

“You’re right,” Jon says, nodding again. Doubt starts untangling the knot in the back of his mind, but he pushes it down. It was a dream. The world is whole and he’s here with Martin, and he’s not sure why he keeps trying to ruin it for himself. 

“I’m sorry, Jon,” Martin says, softly, squeezing Jon’s free hand. “I can tell how bad it rattled you.”

“Didn’t really like living in a world that didn’t have you in it,” Jon says, squeezing back. “Just odd, because I haven’t slept in...weeks? Months? Why now?”

“Jon, you sleep...every night,” Martin says, squinting. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because--because of the…” Jon starts, then blinks, second-guessing himself. “Do I?”

“I mean, I guess you could be pretending,” Martin says. “Not sure why you would, though.”

“But...but since my coma, since I--since--” 

“Coma?” Martin repeats, looking genuinely alarmed. “Jon, what are you--what  _ coma _ are you talking about?”

“After the Unknowing,” Jon says, a pit opening in his stomach. 

“You were fine after the Unknowing, Jon, we all were,” Martin says. “Was--was this a thing in your dream? Are you forgetting?”

“Maybe,” Jon says, rubbing his forehead. “Tim--Tim made it out?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, laughing nervously. “What--why wouldn’t he have?”

“I don’t know,” Jon says. “I just...I thought--in my dream, in the--he was dead.” What a fucking detailed, intense dream. If he ever sees Helen again, he’s going to punch her in her real-estate smile for confusing him this much.

Martin looks at him so strangely, a mix of his regular soft affection and something deeply, truly sad, and Jon can’t figure out why, but it’s somewhat alarming. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, quietly, and that’s a strange thing to say with such intensity about a dream.

“Are you alright?” Jon asks, and Martin quickly forces a smile.

“Yeah. Of course.”

It doesn’t quite ring true in his voice, but Jon finds himself believing it anyway, and besides, he’s more focused on the strange feeling creeping through his body, a dull, ringing pain, burning in every nerve. Martin reaches out and cups his face, brushing a thumb under his eye and pulling it away bloody.

“Huh,” Jon says, blinking at the blood. “Bad sign.”

“You’ll be fine,” Martin says, firmly. “Probably just some fucked-up Eye thing.”

“I...I guess,” Jon says. “It’s strange, though, I can’t really--I don’t particularly feel the Eye.” He doesn’t. Or--he does, yeah, it’s there, but there’s not much intensity to it. It feels like before everything went to shit. The door in his mind, the one with the ocean behind it--it isn’t there. Replaced by a cat door to a river. Better than nothing, but not enough to help him much.

He reaches out to Martin’s mind anyway, tries to understand what’s wrong, but his mind gets...stuck. He starts to follow a thought, but it tangles back in on itself. Trains of knowledge cross tracks at high speeds and he can’t follow them, and then he’s trapped there, Martin’s mind rushing by around him, completely unknowable. He blinks back out, blood sticky on his eyelashes.

Martin wipes it away with his sleeve. “You promised not to try and get in my head,” he says, an irritated edge to his voice. 

“How could you--how do you know I did?” Jon asks.

“I always know, Jon,” Martin says, like that’s an obvious truth they’ve discussed. “You’re not the super-stealthy brain ninja you think you are.”

“Oh,” Jon says. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Martin says, with another forced, sad smile. “I know you were just trying to figure out if I’m alright.”

“I’m just...disoriented,” Jon says. “The dream really threw me off.”

“I can tell,” Martin says. “It’ll get better.”

Jon has a distinct feeling that Martin’s words are somehow entering his neural pathways and physically calming him, like a command not to struggle. It tenses him completely. “Martin, I really--I can’t remember how things actually happened. I only remember--”

“Shh, hey, it’s okay,” Martin says, squeezing his hand again. “It’ll come back.”

“Tell me,” Jon says. “Please.”

“Jon, I don’t need to tell you,” Martin says, a sudden degree of intensity behind the words. “You remember. I know you remember.”

Martin’s right. He  _ does _ remember. The Unknowing sort of ended before it even started, though Jon can’t quite find  _ why _ . He just knows that everything Martin said is true--he was never in a coma, Tim survived, and Daisy was never in the Buried. He gets tangled up in trying to remember  _ how _ that happened, but fuck, he’d been afraid. Adrenaline and trauma blur memories, he’s very familiar with that game.

“You’re right,” Jon says, squinting in confusion at himself. “I’m sorry, Martin, I don’t quite feel like myself.” Martin wraps strong arms around Jon, presses Jon’s head into his chest. 

“Don’t apologize,” Martin says, sounding choked up, which really startles Jon. “It’s alright. I love you.”

“What’s wrong, love, please, tell me,” Jon says, pushing out of Martin’s hold and trying to meet his eyes. Martin looks away and shakes his head. 

“Nothing,” he breathes through a constricted throat. “Everything’s fine, Jon, please don’t worry.”

“Martin,  _ tell me _ ,” Jon says, and the compulsion slides off his tongue just as naturally as it used to, but it’s not as magnetic as before, and Martin’s face shifts from pain to irritation.

“Don’t  _ do _ that, Jon,” he snaps. “You know, you don’t  _ have _ to know everything.”

“I just--I want to understand why you’re--”

“It’s nothing to--” Martin starts, then shakes his head, raises an eyebrow like he’s considering something, and changes directions. “I’m just worried about you, Jon, that’s all.”

“You don’t actually seem worried about me,” Jon says, cautiously. “Or at least you don’t seem like you’re taking me seriously. You just keep telling me everything’s fine.”

“I just didn’t want you to feel guilty for worrying me,” Martin says. “I  _ am _ worried.”

Of course he’s worried. Martin worries about everything Jon does. Why does Jon keep second guessing the man he loves? Why is he so  _ paranoid _ ?

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, digging his hands into his hair. “I’m sorry, I’m just--my mind--I feel...scattered.”

“Yeah,” Martin says, biting his lip, watching Jon. “I know. No need to be sorry.”

“This keeps going in circles,” Jon says, scoffing humorlessly at the two of them. “Do you want to go for a walk? Fresh air might help.”

“Sure,” Martin says, shrugging and unfolding his legs as Jon slides off the bed, pulling his hair back and reaching for the two closest mismatched socks to him. 

“How are Georgie and Melanie doing?” Jon asks, squinting at the ground as he puts the socks on, trying to remember, but only coming up with the world from the dream: Melanie blinded, Georgie painfully angry with him.

“They’re good, yeah,” Martin says, lightly. “Don’t forget about the Admiral, he’s doing great.”

“I think--I’d like to call Georgie, I think, I want to make sure she--”

“You can’t do that,” Martin says, quickly. Confused anxiety twists Jon’s stomach.

“What?” he asks, and Martin takes a shallow breath through his nose, recovering, that soft smile coming back to his face.

“The reception up here’s so awful, you remember,” Martin says.

Right. Another logical explanation. Martin’s right, as always. “Of course,” Jon says, performatively flicking himself in the forehead. Martin’s face twists in what looks like pain, and he looks away.

“Come on, it’s nice out, let’s go,” he says, fake-brightness straining his voice, staring out the window. 

“Alright,” Jon says, standing up and sliding his arm under and around Martin’s, holding his hand. Martin detaches to lock the door of the house behind them when they leave, and doesn’t take Jon’s hand again. The air’s cold and clean and it clears Jon’s head a lot. He’s just lucky to be here with Martin, to be out of the nightmare. He shouldn’t obsess so much. Martin’s right, it’ll all come back to normal in time.

They pass a throng of Good Cows, and Jon gasps softly at the sight, anticipating Martin’s heartfelt, overenthusiastic reaction, but he doesn’t even look at them, just raises an eyebrow at Jon.

“You alright?” he asks, and Jon blinks in surprise.

“Good cows, Martin,” he says, pointing at the cows, and Martin turns to look, clearly indulging him.

“Yep,” he says. “Those are definitely good cows.”

The non-response makes Jon feel a little ill. Maybe he’s just remembering the Martin that was his in the dream, but it still feels...wrong. His brain claws at--at  _ something _ , at something that feels like thin, strong string wrapping it and holding it in place. It tightens when he struggles, which makes him struggle harder, and--

He’s in Scotland with the man he loves, why the fuck is he struggling? What is there to struggle against? Why does he have to fight so hard? He should be grateful for everything he has. For everything that’s gone better for him than it did for the him he dreamed he was.

He refuses to let his paranoia take something good away from him. Not again. 

The walk is nice. They kiss on the moors because Martin says he wants to reenact his Regency romance fantasies. He looks incredibly sad the whole time, but Jon can’t figure out why, and Martin keeps telling him it’s fine, so it must be fine.

By the time they get back to the house and Martin disappears to take a shower, Jon’s desire to let things just be is getting gnawed at by his desperation to  _ know _ . He reaches for Martin’s phone before he can stop himself, because he can’t seem to find his own anywhere. He knows the passcode--Martin changed it to the date Jon first told him he loves him, because he’s a hopeless romantic. Except that doesn’t unlock it, which sends that nagging, awful dread spiking through Jon’s heart again. Autopilot sends him to the emergency call button, and he punches in Georgie’s number, which he’s had memorized for over a decade.

She answers after a few rings, irritation saturating her voice. “What do you  _ want _ , Martin.”

“It’s--it’s Jon,” Jon says, and she goes completely silent.

“No, it’s not,” she says, finally, firmly. “If this is a new trick, it’s not fucking funny.”

“No--Georgie, no, really, it’s me,” he says. 

“Stop.”

“Why is it impossible to believe? Why couldn’t--”

“Because you died last year,  _ Jon _ ,” Georgie snaps back. “Terrible fucking joke to play. Go to hell.”

She hangs up just as Martin comes into the room wrapped in a towel, hair dripping. He smiles at Jon at first, and then he sees the phone still pressed to the side of Jon’s hair and what must be a shellshocked look and sighs.

“I told you not to call anyone, Jon,” Martin says, softly, sitting down next to him.

“Explain,” Jon says, unable to form any more words than that through his mind racing.

“I’d rather not,” Martin says, sighing. “It’s fine, Jon. Whatever she told you, it’s not true. It’s a bad joke. She’s messing with you.”

Georgie did on occasion like to play jokes on people that bordered on horror, but--not mean-spirited like this, and never on Jon, because she always knew his mind was fragile and liable to shatter. Martin’s lying.

“No--no,  _ explain _ ,” Jon repeats, more insistently.

“ _ Jon _ . I told you it’s  _ fine _ , and she’s lying,” Martin says, jaw tight. “Please, listen to me.”

...Martin’s right. Martin’s always right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like I know I wrote this but. yikes.


	8. 4.3/5.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truly all of you freaking out feeds me and only increases my power, thank you, I love it <3 Hope you guys continue--well, enjoying probably isn't the right word, but you know.
> 
> CW: gaslighting (definitely more regarding mental health this chapter), manipulation, seizures

Martin’s always right, but something keeps gnawing Jon’s mind anyway, a pervasive sense of wrongness that he can’t shake, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how hard he loves Martin. They’re sitting at the kitchen table, mid-morning light shining soft through the window, illuminating Martin and the odd streaks in his hair that Jon somehow never noticed before today.

“Why would Georgie lie about me being dead?” Jon asks, listlessly poking at eggs he made but doesn’t have any desire to eat. He knows Martin’s right, it wasn’t true, but he can’t stop thinking about it anyway. It’s so unlike her to do something like that.

“I don’t know, Jon,” Martin says, an edge of irritation in his voice. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I don’t actually think it is,” Jon says, brow furrowed, meeting Martin’s eyes. “I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I wish you’d stop forcing me to do this,” Martin says, sighing.

“Do--do  _ what _ ?” Jon asks.

“I’m completely honest with you, Jon,” Martin deadpans. “I love you, and I wouldn’t lie.”

Martin loves him. Martin loves him  _ so _ much, and he loves Martin back, just as much. Why would Martin ever lie to him? “Of course you wouldn’t,” Jon says, blinking, shaking the doubt out. “I’m sorry for doubting you. It’s just odd.”

“I agree,” Martin says, drumming his fingers on the table. “I don’t know why people do the things they do, though, that’s your thing.”

“You’re right,” Jon says, and he tries to reach out to London, to  _ know _ \--but he forgot how weak his connection to the Eye is, and his mind jerks back like it’s on some kind of strange, sticky leash, trapping him in place. He opens his mouth to mention it, but decides against it.

“Anything you want to do today?” Martin asks, with a bright smile, clearly trying to steer away from the conversation they’re having, which just makes Jon want to hold on tighter, that insatiable desire to  _ understand  _ digging in deep.

Georgie’s words replay, plus the odd way Martin’s been acting, like--like there’s something he doesn’t want to admit, and the question comes to mind, absurd, but still worth asking. 

“Martin, am I dead?” he asks, and Martin blinks several times, quickly, keeping his face even.

“You’re here,” he says, after a moment. “You’re here, you have a body, and people can hear and see you, so.”

“I could still be--I don’t know,” Jon says, shrugging, shaking his head. “Something’s not right.”

“Jon, I  _ really _ don’t want to keep going in circles,” Martin snaps, then he sighs, and his tone changes to pleading. “Please, just  _ listen _ to me. You’re not dead. Everything is absolutely fine.”

“I know,” Jon says. “But--”

“There isn’t a  _ but _ , Jon!” Martin shouts, then looks away, running a hand over his face. He takes a deep breath, then repeats himself, more calmly. “There isn’t a but. Look, I understand if--if after everything we’ve been through, you have a hard time accepting things just being calm and fine, but--but they  _ are _ , okay? They’re  _ fine _ . We’re fine.” He swallows hard, looks physically ill when he says “It’s just your paranoia acting up.”

Jon  _ is _ paranoid, isn’t he? When Martin says that, it echoes through his body, the anxiety that he’s losing his mind magnifying tenfold. Christ, he’s such a mess, asking if he’s  _ dead _ , genuinely believing something’s wrong when everything’s as close to perfect as it’s been in a long time--Martin shouldn’t have to deal with this. He needs a cigarette, just--just something to calm himself down so he can think this through rationally. 

He clears his throat, runs a shaky hand through his hair. “I’m gonna have a smoke,” he says, exhaling slowly and pushing himself to his feet. He digs through every coat and pair of jeans in the bedroom, but can’t find a single fucking cigarette anywhere, which just leaves him frustrated and panicky, desperate for relief. He emerges again, to Martin giving him an expectant look.

“You okay?”

“Need to go buy cigarettes,” Jon says, running a hand back through his hair. “I’ll be back.”

“I think I should come,” Martin says. “We need more tea anyway.”

“I can buy tea,” Jon says. 

“You never get the right kind,” Martin says, voice sharp. “I’ll go with you.”

Jon’s mind catches on a dissonant note again, something that just--Martin  _ hates _ when he smokes. He’s always petulant and passive-aggressive about it, muttering ‘you’re going to get lung cancer’ whenever Jon heads out to smoke, making disgusted sounds when he smells it on Jon’s clothes. He would never just--just go along with this, without at least two muttered, shitty comments.

“I’d rather go by myself,” Jon says, half-forming a plan about borrowing some kind stranger’s phone and trying to call Georgie again, trying to figure out what’s going on, because there is such a pit of  _ wrongness _ in his stomach, no matter how much he wants--no, is  _ compelled _ \--to believe Martin. 

“Really? You’re having some kind of paranoid episode and you think I’m going to let you just--go off alone? What if you get hurt?”

He probably  _ could _ get himself hurt, could see all sorts of things out of the corner of his eye, could--but  _ no _ , he’s better now, he has to have  _ some _ kind of faith in himself, and this is all wrong.

“I’m not a child, Martin,” Jon snaps. “I don’t need you to  _ let _ me do anything. Tell me what sort of tea you want, I’ll get it.”

“Jon--”

“ _ No _ ,” Jon says. “I don’t--I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t--I don’t  _ trust _ you, Martin.”

“Yes, you do,” Martin snaps back. “You  _ have _ to. This is just your--”

Of  _ course _ he trusts Martin, Martin who--who doesn’t love Good Cows, who doesn’t care if he smokes, who--

“No, it’s  _ not _ my paranoia,  _ you aren’t Martin _ .”

“Who else would I be, Jon?” Martin asks. “You  _ know _ me. You know me better than  _ anyone _ , and--”

“That’s why I know something’s wrong. There’s something you’re not telling me,” Jon repeats. “There  _ has _ to be.”

“Jon, I really--” Martin starts, then shakes his head, sighing. “You know, I  _ wish _ I didn’t have to do this, I really do.”

“Do  _ what _ ? What are you talking about? What  _ are _ you?” Jon asks, terror building in him, pounding at his chest, making him nauseous and dizzy.

“You’re clearly not ready yet,” Martin says, like that’s supposed to make sense. “You’re struggling too hard. That’s my fault, I misjudged you, because I expected you to be him, but you’re not. I’m sorry about this. I really am.”

“Martin…?” Jon asks, backing away instinctively as Martin stands up and approaches him. “Martin, what are you doing.”

“Don’t worry, Jon,” Martin says. “It’ll all work out eventually.” He reaches out and gently shoves Jon backwards. 

Jon staggers back, more from surprise than physical impact, and then the world tilts behind him, and he falls, back arched, into nothingness, and everythingness, straight down through a corridor tilted on its axis, with tens of hundreds of thousands of doors. He hits terminal velocity, blacks out, and--

* * *

He comes out of his coma with the force of a tidal wave, gasping desperately for air, hands scrabbling up to rip the tubes out of his face. The words are still black and vile in the back of his throat like congealed, old blood-- _ you who watch and know and understand none _ \--

He must’ve...he must’ve hurt himself stopping the invocation, and that’s why he’s in hospital, that must--Martin will know, if Martin’s--but where is he, why isn’t he there with Jon, why--

Jon’s heart rate is spiking on the monitors, and he starts pulling at the IV in his arm, the pulse monitor on his finger, trying to get detached and free so he can find Martin and make sure everything’s okay, because everything has to be okay, he  _ stopped _ it, didn’t he, he stopped himself. 

As he unclamps the pulse monitor from his hand and nurses start running in, he notices--he should be--he bit his fingers nearly down to the bone trying to stick his fingers down his throat to stop himself speaking, but there’s no mark, nothing at all there but the burn scar, and cold, nauseating confusion beats out through his veins. 

He tries to  _ know  _ what’s happening, where Martin is, but what the Eye unceremoniously tosses at him makes no sense. The nurses try to calm him, put reassuring hands on his shoulders, gently hook him back up to the spiderweb of machines and tubes he was caught in, and he grips back at their wrists, wordlessly, not understanding, trying to--to think logically about the knowledge wholly formed and perfectly true in his mind, that it’s January 9th, 2019, that Oliver Banks is down the hall, that Georgie’s metres away and not yet fully given up on him, that there’s still time to fix everything.

There’s a battery of questions and tests and lights in his eyes and he endures all of it with something close to euphoria in his chest because he has a second chance to end this before it’s too late. 

Something nags at him, some sense of deja vu, beyond the fact that he’s been thrown back a year into the past. It’s an itching familiarity he can’t quite place, so he starts pulling at it, scrabbling at that door in his mind like a pet left out in the cold, begging his master to let him back in.

The Eye cracks the door, and it overwhelms his mind immediately, tangling him in incoherent, circular knowledge, events that never happened to him, versions of his friends he never knew, and it paralyzes him. He convulses slightly, and voices raise around him as he seizes, completely flooded and oversaturated by information impossible to parse. His teeth chatter and he tastes blood as he tries to pull the door back shut to protect himself.

He feels it slam, and he falls back out of consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun (useless, self-indulgent) fact, the start of this loop was my original opening for this fic! anyway, I'm sure that's the last we'll see of that Martin.


	9. 5.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: arguing, memory loss, brief mention of addiction, briefly mentioned major character death

He tastes blood when he wakes up again, migraine pounding in his head, digging knives through his skull. He can barely hear the voices around him through the pain, pain he tries to physically recoil from, somehow forgetting it’s inside him.

Light blinds him, but he forces his eyes open anyway. They fall on Tim, deep, ropey, burn scars climbing his neck and chin, leaning back in an uncomfortable hospital chair, leg bouncing.

Jon’s heart jolts when he sees him, pain blooming in his head, confusion clogging his chest. If it’s--if he’s out of his coma, then Tim’s--he’s--he’s  _ dead _ , and--

“Jon?”

Martin’s voice, from the other side of him. He whips his head around, ignoring the pain, and sighs with relief. Martin smiles when their eyes meet.

“Martin,” Jon says, relief and affection flooding his voice. 

“How are you feeling?” Martin asks, voice small-but-cheery in the way that means he might be about to burst into tears. 

“Fine,” Jon says. “Well, quite bad, but--alive, I--” He cuts off, shaking his head against the shitty hospital pillow, just glad to see Martin, even if it’s before they’re together. It takes a moment through the pain to feel the hunger settling into his bones. 

“Glad you’re okay, boss,” Tim says, quietly, voice ragged. “Was sort of hoping we wouldn’t lose you on top of everyone else.”

“Everyone--?” Jon asks, not looking away from Martin, whose head jolts up to give Tim a distinct  _ not now _ look.

“Wish it’d been you instead of all of them, but. Can’t always get what you want,” Tim continues.

“Tim, he’s just come out of a coma, you can’t--”

“Who--?” Jon asks, cold fear stabbing at his insides.

“Basira, Daisy, Melanie,” Tim says. “All dead. Yet you’re fucking  _ fine _ .”

“ _ No _ ,” Jon breathes, dissonance prickling at him. “No, that’s--that wasn’t supposed to--”

“It’s not your fault,” Martin says, voice pitched up, on the verge of tears. He squeezes Jon’s hand. “You did your best.”

His touch sends something through Jon, images flashing in his mind of--other--other times through--

Jon struggles for air through a panicked, tight chest, as everything floods back to him, the other times through, the--he starts laughing, a bit on the edge of hysteria, a bit relieved that this isn’t forever, everyone’s not dead forever, he can leave this reality for another, not that that ever seems to help.

“Should we get a doctor?” Tim asks, dispassionately.

“No,” Jon breathes, trying to get control of himself back. “No, that’s fine, Tim, I’m fine, thank you.”

“What the fuck  _ are _ you now, Jon?” Tim snaps. A metaphysical hunger pang flashes through Jon, and he winces.

“The Archivist,” Jon says, drily, and Tim scoffs.

“Yeah, so what does that mean, you’re like Bouchard? Gonna dredge up all our trauma? Bind us to you?”

“No,” Jon says. “But it’s not as if you’ll believe anything I say, is it?”

“Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner, what a  _ smart _ fucking lad you are,” Tim deadpans.

“Tim,  _ stop _ ,” Martin says. 

“Why? He survived when all our friends  _ died _ because he’s a fucking monster, Martin, why should I be  _ nice _ ? I thought your crush on him burnt out a long time ago.”

“Are you seriously  _ jealous _ ?” Martin asks. “You’re being an absolute  _ child _ , he’s--he’s all we have left, alright? He’s on our side.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“I’m right here,” Jon says, raising a hand.

“I mean, you are  _ so _ insecure sometimes!” Martin says, throwing his hands up, completely ignoring Jon. “Two  _ years _ we’ve been together, and you  _ still _ get jealous about Jon. I can’t believe it, you’d think we have more important--”

“I’m not  _ jealous _ , I’m worried about the fact that he’s a literal monster, and you unconditionally trusting him is  _ stupid _ \--”

“I don’t  _ unconditionally _ trust him, and I’d thank you not to call me stupid, actually, Tim--”

Jon’s brain catches up with their argument, and a strange, twisting pit opens in his stomach when he clocks the ‘together’ part. This Martin isn’t and can’t be his. It’s an odd feeling, obviously not  _ worse _ than the world where Martin was dead, but a different kind of painful.

His mind drifts away from the ongoing fight and to--where was he before he woke up here? He’d been killed by Not-Martin, but that wasn’t--there was something else, but it’s a blank spot in his memory, and that disturbs him more than anything that could’ve actually happened. 

The Eye won’t be able to show him without overwhelming him again, he realizes that. They’re both too deep in whatever’s happening to function together, so really, he’s lost his only ally, reluctant as it may be to help after what he did.

He just wishes he didn’t still feel the hunger. He’s desperate for Martin and Tim to stop arguing, desperate to force a statement out of one of them so he can begin to gather himself even a little and work on getting out of this reality, and maybe find  _ something _ to make it a bit better for them before he leaves.

He’s not going to do that, though, he’s  _ not  _ the monster Tim thinks he is, or he’s at least determined not to be. Not again. He can just--just  _ ask _ Martin to bring him a statement. He can exercise self-control. He’s an addict, sure, but he won’t let it own him, not this time, not again.

He snaps out of his own head to Tim storming out and kicking the chair away behind him, Martin sighing heavily, winding his hands through his hair, and visibly trying not to cry. The sight hurts Jon, and he reaches out a hand to Martin, letting it sort of awkwardly hover over his leg before retracting it again.

“Sorry about him,” Martin says, quietly. “It’s been...it hasn’t been easy. But I guess you probably... _ know  _ that, don’t you.”

“Don’t really need to  _ know _ it,” Jon says. “It’s alright. Don’t apologize. I understand why he’s angry.”

“I just...I don’t want you to feel guilty. I know you didn’t want them to die, and--I know--.” He trails off, shaking his head and hugging himself.

“Is--is Elias--” Jon starts, trying to gauge just how different things are.

“In jail? Yeah,” Martin says, half-smiling. “So there’s that, at least.”

“So Peter Lukas is the head of the Institute now?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, blinking in confusion. “How--how would you know that?”

“How do you think?” Jon asks, trying for gentle teasing.

“ _ Oh _ ,” Martin says. “Right. Sorry.”

“You’re not working for him?” 

“Why would I be?” Martin asks, shrugging. “I--I want to keep his attention off us, but Tim...Tim isn’t good at laying low, and there’s so few of us left, so. I don’t really want to be that close to the Lonely, if I’m honest, because I’m--because I’m  _ not  _ lonely, and I don’t think it’ll make much of a difference. Sorry. Sorry, I don’t know why I’m--you don’t need to hear about--”

“Martin, it’s alright,” Jon says, in an attempt at reassurance, even as his mind catches on and twists apart the fact that somehow, being with Tim saves Martin from the Lonely before it even gets to that point. Self-loathing and doubt starts to sink in, fear that he’s hurt his Martin in more ways than he’ll ever truly know, even if it wasn’t directly his fault. “You can tell me anything. I’m glad you’re prioritizing yourself. Tim and I can manage ourselves.”

“So can I,” Martin snaps, defensively, but then he softens. “Sorry. Thank you is what I actually meant to say.”

“I need--can you do something for me?” Jon asks, trying to swallow the desperation in his voice.

“Yeah, of course,” Martin says, attempting a reassuring smile. “What d’you need?”

“A statement,” Jon says, gratefully. “Any statement, just--one I haven’t done before, there should be a pile on my desk--”

“You want to start working already?” Martin asks, face squinching in concern. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’ve just been in a  _ coma _ \--which, by the way, how...was your coma…? I should’ve asked.”

Jon can’t help but smile at that. “My coma was fine, Martin, thank you. Very eventful.”

“Glad to hear it,” Martin says, smiling at the ground. 

“And the statement--it’s not really about  _ working _ , it’s…” Jon trails off and sighs. “Tim’s right about me being a monster. I need them for...sustenance, I suppose. Better that than digging trauma out of innocent strangers.”

“Oh,” Martin says, a bit wide-eyed. “Yeah, probably. Is there any--any sort you’d prefer? Any entity, or--or country, or--”

“I’ve always been partial to Italian food,” Jon says, smile twitching at his lips, even through the pain and hunger, at how considerate Martin is.

Martin blushes. “Okay, stupid question.”

“Anything’s fine, Martin, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Martin says, as startlingly earnest as ever. He starts to stand up, but sighs and sits back down. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Jon. I was…” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Just. I’m glad you’re still here.”

“I’m glad you’re here too,” Jon says, and Martin flushes.

“Uh, I’ll get you a statement. Carry-out dinner, I guess,” he says, looking faintly amused by his own joke. Jon wishes this were a world where he could kiss Martin  _ so _ badly, but it’s not, so he lets it burn at his heart, tries to focus on the pain swelling in his head instead.

Martin leaves, brushing a hand over the end of Jon’s bed as he goes. In his absence, Jon’s mind drifts back to the blank spot in his memory, like a little kid that can’t stop tonguing the spot where their tooth used to be. There was  _ something _ , something  _ important _ , but all he can come up with is light catching translucent string, a pervasive feeling of dread, the sense of struggling and being wound tighter.

The vague sense memories set his heart pounding with fear, and he struggles harder for specifics, because that all feels too much like--like Mr. Spider. Like he’s being dragged towards that doorway again, except this time, there’s no one else ahead of him in line to be eaten. 

Like this time it’s his turn. 


	10. 5.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This...certainly is a chapter. I truly wish "implied/referenced lonelyeyes" was a tag.
> 
> CW: the Lonely and all of the self-hatred that comes with it (there's a lot), Jon's general ongoing determination to die

Unsurprisingly, Jon’s released from the hospital not long after he starts reading statements again. The doctors call it bizarre and miraculous and ask if he’d be amenable to being a coma victim case study. He tells them sure, if they’re willing to wait a bit. No sense hurting anyone’s feelings, especially if it’s not a real commitment.

Being stuck in hospital gave him time to consider his next move. He has to die to move on, obviously, and that’s a priority, but--after the Stranger killed him and took his form and inevitably doomed Tim and Sasha in the last...dimension? Reality? Loop? Whatever it is, he isn’t going to make a mistake like that again. He has to look out for the people he leaves behind. Especially since, this time, one of them is Martin.

He came up with a plan, a bit after the third straight statement he blew through. Martin was there keeping him company. He’d watched silently, and when Jon finally stopped reading, he’d said--softly, maybe a little worried, but ultimately a bit pleased with himself--”You really inhaled those”, and Jon couldn’t help but laugh. It was a good high. The strongest he’s felt since whatever hell he’s stuck in started.

Elias being in jail is a bit of a detriment to Jon’s normal plan, which would be antagonizing Elias into killing him and/or killing Elias again and hoping their connection is still strong enough it’d take him out too. However, since that’s a non-option, Jon went through a mental checklist of Avatars That Could Kill Him. It’s a long list, but there’s only one who could actually look out for Martin and Tim in any meaningful way.

Jon hates his plan a lot, but it’s all he has. He gets out of the hospital, and as soon as they let him out of the pointless discharge wheelchair, he takes the Tube to the Institute. His clothes are scorched and ripped, presumably from the Unknowing, but fuckit, no point wasting time going back to his flat. He is, as always, set in his purpose, despite the fact that he’s becoming fairly certain his purpose is wrong at least 65% of the time.

He considers saying goodbye to Martin as he calls the lift, but--well, he’ll see Martin again.  _ A _ Martin, at least, and there’s no point worrying this one. No point making him agonize over what Jon’s going to do before he turns up dead.

The cold sets into Jon’s bones as soon as the lift doors open on the top floor, so at least he knows Peter’s in his office. Jon does him the courtesy of knocking, and gets an amicable “Come in” for his trouble.

Jon enters, closes the door behind him, and sits down across from Peter, whose eyebrows are buried in his hairline. 

“Jon!” he says, sounding absolutely shocked and somewhat delighted. “Back so soon!”

“You gamble, don’t you, Peter?” Jon asks, not bothering to engage in whatever Peter’s going to try and start with him. 

“I...have been known to, on occasion, yes,” Peter says, his smile wavering slightly. Jon doesn’t need the Eye to feel Peter’s seething discomfort with people. “Why do you ask?”

“I’d like to make a bet,” Jon says.

“ _ Ah _ ,” Peter says. “I’m not sure that--”

“If you win, I’ll do whatever you want,” Jon says. “I’m sure having the Archivist on the side of your god would be a massive win for you, and considering your history of failure, you could use one.”

Peter’s eyebrows shoot up again. “I see all avatars of the Eye are equally warm and cuddly!”

“Oh, trust me, I have no interest in treating you the way Jonah does. Unlike him, I actually pity you,” Jon says, keeping his face set. He has to sell this. It’s a strange wager he’s going to make, and he needs to seem arrogant,  _ too _ arrogant. He needs to look like he’s sliding on a pair of wax wings.

“Jonah pities me plenty,” Peter says, face twisting. “What do you get if you win?”

“You promise to look out for Martin and Tim. Protect them from the other Entities. From  _ anything _ ,” Jon says. 

“Martin and Tim?” Peter asks, blankly.

“Blackwood and Stoker,” Jon says, irritation slipping into his tone. “The only two surviving employees in the Archives?”

“Ah!” Peter says, nodding. “Yes. Loyalty to your friends. I see.”

“That’s not all,” Jon says. “If I win, you protect them--and I do hope you’re a man of your word, because I’ll also need you to kill me.”

Peter, to his credit, controls his reaction to that very well. He blinks a few times in surprise. “Come again?”

“If I win, you kill me.”

“Ah. So I didn’t mishear you.”

“I’m sure it’ll make Jonah  _ very _ angry,” Jon says. “That should be a selling point for you.”

“Oh, it is, but--can you  _ die _ ?” Peter asks.

“I certainly hope so.”

“You’re an odd one, Archivist,” Peter says. “But fine. What’s the bet?”

“I bet I can make it out of the Lonely.”

“With the Eye on your side? Not much of a bet, is it,” Peter says, scoffing. “No.”

“Really? That little confidence in your god?” Jon asks, not mentioning that his connection to the Eye is scattered and weak, because it isn’t something he could prove. “Makes sense, considering how badly you failed it.”

“What do you know about  _ my god _ ?”

“Apparently only that it’s inferior to mine. I know you’ll always be under Jonah’s thumb, always deferential to him, because you don’t actually believe in it, not  _ really _ , do you?” Jon asks, letting a smirk play across his face. He’s trying to channel everything he hates about Elias, and it seems to be working, even with near-destroyed clothing and lank, unwashed hair. “Fine, then. Don’t take the bet. I think you win either way, though. Either you prove your god stronger than mine--than Jonah’s--and you have me on your side, or you get to kill me.”

“Gertrude could afford to be a bitch,” Peter says, shaking his head. “She had the experience for it. You, though…”

“So put me in my place, old man,” Jon says. 

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Archivist, but you’re playing to lose.”

“I certainly am. Was that a yes?” Jon asks, raising an eyebrow and cocking his head.

Peter sighs, heavily, and reaches a hand out over the desk. “I don’t fucking trust you.”

“Do you trust  _ anyone _ ? I’d think that’s a violation of your beliefs,” Jon says, taking Peter’s hand and shaking.

“If I didn’t know Jonah’s eyes so well, I’d think he took your body,” Peter says.

Jon laughs at that, sort of surprised, but also just resigned. He’s confident in his ability to get out of the Lonely, but he’s aware it’s going to be unpleasant. “Alright,” he says. “Get it over with.”

“If you’re sure,” Peter says, shaking his head and shrugging. Static rises, filling Jon’s mind, and cold sinks into his bones from every pore. It’s inside him, and the world whites out around him, and then--

Right. Here. Jon really does hate it here. But where else would he end up? He’s so fucking alone in all of this. He’s been alone from the beginning. He’s not  _ good _ at people, never was. That’s why Georgie left him, way back when, isn’t it? Because he couldn’t read her, because it was always the wrong moment, because--because he was too much or not enough or both in too quick succession. Because he thought just loving someone was enough to be worthy of them loving him back.

He doesn’t  _ deserve _ romantic love, he just fucks it up, it’s--maybe it’s  _ good _ that he can’t get back to his Martin. He’d hurt him. All he’d do is hurt him, and Martin deserves  _ everything _ in the world, and if Jon ever shattered any part of him he’d never forgive himself.

He’s been alone since he got promoted, at the very least. Since Elias forcibly alienated him from Tim and Sasha by putting him above them. He ended the comradery, the inside jokes, the general and genuine swells of affection he had just walking in and seeing them every day. He misses them constantly, it  _ burns _ , but...the burning freezes and fades, and he’s just...alone. They’re gone. More mistakes he’s made, more people he’s destroyed.

He really does deserve to be alone. Georgie knew as much when she told him to get out of her flat. There, that’s a relationship he’s broken twice--that’s proof enough that he deserves to be here, deserves to be full of this cold, numbing fog, unseen forever. He breaks fucking  _ everything _ , and the fact that people keep putting their trust and love in him is confusing and appalling. 

Martin’s the only one that doesn’t understand, and that’s strange, isn’t it, because Martin’s  _ smart _ . Martin puts things together when Jon can’t, and yet he can’t see that he loves a monster, loves someone who deserves, beyond anything, to be unloved. Even Jon’s grandmother knew that.

Maybe that’s unfair. She probably loved Jon, she was just--she was just very English about it, very disaffected, very...hands-off, and...well. He’s just making excuses. He’s doing what Martin does whenever the subject of his mother comes up. Pretending things were okay when they weren’t so he doesn’t have to handle it.

But--no, that was a thought that started to burn off the fog--Martin’s smart and Martin loves him and he can’t write that off. He can’t just dismiss that. Martin has  _ reasons _ for the things he does, certainly more than Jon ever does, and--and Martin wouldn’t love him for no reason. He  _ wouldn’t _ , it’s--

No. No, he doesn’t deserve to be alone. No one does. He used to be that misanthropic fucker that quoted Sartre,  _ hell is other people _ , but that was  _ bullshit _ and  _ stupid _ and  _ wrong _ . Hell is being alone in everything. Hell is being cosmically separated from the man you love and desperately struggling to get back to him. Hell is being alone, but Jon’s not alone, not as long as someone loves him, not as long as he loves them back.

Fuck the Lonely, and fuck Peter Lukas. He made this bet because he knew he could win. He loves and is loved and he  _ deserves it _ .

He snaps back out of it in Peter’s office. Peter’s playing Windows Solitaire, and he jolts in surprise when Jon reappears, shaking with cold. “That was surprisingly quick for someone as antisocial and generally unpleasant as you,” Peter says, rather cheerily, considering his loss.

“I fucking hate you,” Jon manages, despite his teeth chattering. 

“That seems to be the general sentiment around here,” Peter says, shrugging in a ‘well, shucks’ sort of way. “How would you like to die, Archivist?”

“I don’t care,” Jon says, shaking his head and hugging himself. “Just get it over with.”

“Right!” Peter says.

“You’ll--you’ll hold up your end of the deal?”

“You don’t trust I’m a man of my word?” Peter asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’m wounded.”

“I have to trust you,” Jon says.

“I suppose you do.” Peter sighs heavily. “I don’t particularly  _ enjoy _ doing this.”

“Tough,” Jon says. 

Static rises again, but violent this time. All-consuming. He can’t hear himself anymore, can’t remember what his voice would even sound like--has he ever  _ used _ it? He’s alone, and there’s no one to speak to. Maybe he doesn’t even know how. Maybe he can’t even keep  _ himself _ company. His thoughts mute, drowned in static, and then--   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next loop is actually a fun AU, I promise*
> 
> (*this isn't an actual promise I'm sure y'all know you can't trust me by now)


	11. 6.1/7.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God honestly, you guys make me so happy. I'm so glad people are invested in this fic, it's a lot of fun for me. Thank you. This chapter is, uh...yeah, it sure did happen?
> 
> CW: memory loss

He’s at a desk in the Archives. It’s not in his office, it’s out--actually, he’s fairly certain it’s Sasha’s desk, once the disorientation lifts a little. He tastes blood and his ears ring deafeningly, and his vision is a little staticky, but he breathes through it, fingers rigid on the edge of the desk.

“You look like  _ shit _ .”

He doesn’t recognize the voice coming from his left side immediately. Not Tim, or Sasha, certainly not Martin, but--familiar, he thinks. He can’t actually move his neck to look at them, and he has to choke bile back, so they have to remain anonymous until they come into his field of view.

“Thanks,” he manages. 

“You okay? Is this medical or are you just hungover to fuck?” the voice asks. “I don’t judge, but if it’s the latter, I’m always interested in office gossip.”

“Just--a migraine,” Jon says, through clenched teeth. It’s an easy lie.

“D’you wanna go home?”

“I’m fine. It’ll pass."

The person comes around Jon’s desk and crouches in front of it, putting his arms and chin on the wood. Jon nearly laughs when he sees who it is.  _ Curiouser and curiouser _ . Gerard Keay, in the flesh. 

“You sure you’re not hungover?” Gerry asks, raising an eyebrow and scratching it, the eyes tattooed on his hand and knuckles drilling into Jon. “Really, you don’t have to lie. I feel like you could get wild.”

“I’m sure,” Jon says. 

“Fine, well, if you’re good and you aren’t going to offer up any interesting bits of scandal, I’m gonna have to ask you to do your job,” Gerry says, a somehow-friendly smirk twitching at his lips. 

“Which...is…”

“ _ Wow _ .” Gerry shakes his head. “You were gonna follow up on the, uh. Fuck, what’s his name. The Hodge statement? The one with the, uh, sexy worm girl. Or. The girl who burst into worms after sex. Same difference.”

“Right,” Jon says. “And you’re doing…”

“Some migraine, mate, you should go to the doctor,” Gerry says. “I’m doing Head Archivist Things. Top secret, don’tcha know.”

“Right,” Jon repeats, nodding slowly. “Right, you’re...you’re the Archivist. Okay.”

Gerry raises his eyebrows and also nods slowly, matching Jon’s speed. “Yes. I am.” He cocks his head and brushes his hair back behind his ear. Jon can feel the Eye staring into him. “Holy shit, what’s going on with you, Jon?”

“What?” Jon asks.

“I don’t--uh…” Gerry trails off, looking away from Jon for a moment, and then back. He stands up. “Could you come to my office, actually?”

“I...why?” Jon asks, squinting in confusion, trying to figure out what the Eye is showing Gerry and what he plans to do about it. He comes up blank. The pain is drowning him out.

“Because I’m your boss and I told you to,” Gerry says, sounding more amused than anything else. “Between you questioning me on everything, Tim trying his damndest to flirt with me, and Sasha doing her whole private investigator thing trying to figure out if I’m a murderer, Bouchard really decided he was going to test me, huh?”

“What about Martin?” Jon asks, absently, trying to summon the energy and ability to stand up.

“Who?”

“Ah,” Jon says. “Never mind.” He manages to force himself to his feet, braced heavily on the desk. 

“ _ Fuck _ , Jon, some migraine,” Gerry says, hand hovering over Jon’s shoulder. 

“You’re telling me,” Jon manages, eyes clenched shut against the all-consuming waves of vertigo and violent static swelling in his mind. He manages to follow Gerry to his office near-blind, and gratefully collapses into the chair Gerry pulls out for him.

“Look, I can’t get the full picture of what’s going on with you from, uh--” Gerry trails off, tilts his head, considering. “Well, from It.” He raises his chin and points at his neck, the tattoo seeming to blink uninterestedly at Jon, or maybe he’s just really losing it. “I will take it from your non-reaction that you’re familiar with our friend slash patron slash head lemming. Or you’re just really fucked up, I guess.”

“No, I’m familiar with It.”

“I know that something--you’re in  _ something _ . But I don’t think I can get at it just by looking in. I think--” Gerry opens a desk drawer and pulls out a tape recorder, setting it on the desk between them. “I think you should make a statement.”

“I don’t--”

“It helps, sometimes,” Gerry says. “ _ It _ makes you see things you can’t on your own. Or maybe that’s just me.” Gerry shrugs, and hits play on the tape recorder. “Could you state your name?”

Jon laughs, a little dark, somewhat manic, shaking his head. “Fine. Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.”

“Now  _ that’s _ interesting,” Gerry says. “What’s this statement regarding?”

“I--” Jon trails off, shaking his head, a peal of laughter hitting him again. “I have no idea. I wish that I could tell you, Gerry, I really fucking do.”

“Statement given--” Gerry starts, half-smiling. “Wait. Who the fuck said you could call me that?”

“You did,” Jon says, because he’s already hit the flypaper of compulsion. “In the--where I came from.”

“Context?” Gerry asks.

“Quite a long story, actually. Your mum’s flesh book, a brain tumor, some Hunt avatars,” Jon says.

Gerry chews the inside of his lip, nodding at the desk. “Yeah, sounds like a life I’d live. Poor fucker, other me. No sense dwelling.”

“None indeed.”

“How did you end up here, Jon?”

“A question I wish I could answer,” Jon says. 

“Stop trying to resist the compulsion. It’ll help to get this out,” Gerry says. 

“Fine,” Jon says. “Good luck filing it.” He sighs, leans his face into his hands, and lets compulsion rip the bandaid off. 

* * *

Jon finishes, winded, exhausted from telling the story and from fucking living it and from the weight of being forced to relive it so soon. 

“There’s a gap,” Gerry says, after quickly ending the recording. “You paused for a  _ long _ time after the Stranger killed you. When I compel people, there’s never gaps that long. There’s something there not even the Eye can’t get to. Do you remember anything? Or just waking up in the hospital?”

“I remember--” Jon starts, trying again to poke that white void in his memory. This time, something snarls back, and he physically jolts. “Martin.”

“Okay,” Gerry says. “Why would--”

“That doesn’t make sense though,” Jon says. “Why would I be scared of Martin?”

“I don’t know, mate, I’m not your fucking couples therapist, but if you cooperate and avoid going off on some romantic soliloquy, I can try and help you figure out what’s going on.”

“Fair enough.”

“I was going to ask why you would remember every loop except this one,” Gerry says. “Unless you’re missing others, but--do you think you are?”

“No,” Jon says. “This is the only one that makes me feel like a child’s math test.”

“...that went over  _ my _ head, what?”

“Poorly erased so you don’t see all the errors they made the first time,” Jon says, squinting at the desk. 

“Okay, that’s...something,” Gerry says. “So you think whatever’s controlling this fucked up and tried to make you forget?”

“I...yes, I think so? If--if it wanted me to be frightened of Martin, it  _ definitely  _ made a mistake.”

“So you think it’s feeding on your fear.”

“Doesn’t everything?” Jon asks.

“Sure, but...could it be playing a long game?” Gerry asks, scratching his eyebrow with two fingers. One of the eyes on his knuckles winks at Jon. “I’ve never seen an entity squeeze someone like a near-empty tube of toothpaste like this. Diminishing returns. I think...I think it wants something more from you.”

“What  _ long game _ ?”

“You interrupted the Eye’s ritual, yes?” Gerry asks. “Presumably, whoever orchestrated that ritual spent a lot of time preparing it. Making sure you were fully marked, etcetera.”

“I...yes…”

“Maybe one of the others was counting on that. Waiting, so it could seize its moment.”

“So this is a  _ ritual _ ?” Jon asks.

“I don’t know,” Gerry says, shaking his head and putting his hands up. “I have no idea. I’m just--I’m thinking out loud.”

Whited-out memories flash like strobelights in Jon’s mind. “Wait--wait, Martin said I wasn’t--”

Before he can finish the sentence, a switch flips on reality, and everything drops out around him. He has a brief moment of genuine terror and incredible, overwhelming vertigo before--

* * *

He wakes up, legs tangled with Martin’s, jolting to full consciousness. The entire side of his body he was sleeping on is numb and tingling painfully, and he can’t even move his arm. His lungs feel heavy and near-calcified, but he’s overwhelmingly happy to see Martin, even as he struggles for air.

Martin’s eyes blink open, meeting and holding Jon’s, tightly. Jon can’t look away.

“Morning, Jon,” he says, softly, tiredly.

“Martin,” Jon says, smiling. A little bit of the pressure in his lungs eases, and he can breathe better again. “It’s good to see you.”

“Bad dreams?” Martin asks, face completely neutral. It strikes Jon as odd, but maybe he’s just tired.

Jon tries to remember his dreams, good, bad, or otherwise, but he just comes up with patchy blanks. Decades-old, long-faded nightmares. “I don’t know,” he says, truthfully. 

“Well. You’re here. I’ll keep you safe,” Martin says. He sounds dead exhausted. He sounds like he’s going through the motions. Jon doesn’t really know what to  _ do _ , he’s never seen Martin depressed like this before, and it upsets him a little. Sends him into a blind, flighty sort of panic.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, finally.

“Oh. Nothing,” Martin says. “Please. Don’t worry about me, Jon.”

“I love you. It’s my responsibility to worry about you,” Jon says, running the thumb of his not-numb hand over Martin’s cheekbone. Martin closes his eyes and sort of nuzzles into the touch, face squinched in what looks like genuine agony, and Jon’s heart pangs.

“Fuck,” Martin says, shaking his head and rolling over, sitting up with his back to Jon. 

“Martin.”

“No,  _ don’t _ , I’m--I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not, what’s--” Jon starts, and Martin looks back at Jon over his shoulder, eyes shining with tears.

“I wish I could tell you, I do. Look, just, uh. You’re probably still tired if you didn’t sleep well, why don’t--why don’t you go back to sleep, I’ll be back in a bit. I just need--I need air.”

“Okay,” Jon says softly, feeling helpless as Martin leaves the room. He rolls over and fumbles for his phone on his nightstand, but doesn’t find it, so he looks for Martin’s instead. Nowhere to be found, so he just sighs, rubs his face, and stares at the ceiling.

He always  _ used _ to remember his dreams. Maybe he’s just getting old.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (not to be a narcissist but I am also working on an ongoing jongerry uni leitner hunting AU called "the warning signs have all been bright and garish" if anyone likes my gerry and wants to check that out)


	12. 7.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back baybbeeeee :):):) (am I talking about myself or this Martin? yes)
> 
> CW: gaslighting, manipulation, questioning sanity, memory loss, referenced addiction

Martin comes back after a few minutes and sits back down on the bed, knees pulled to his chin, facing Jon.

“Could you--” he starts, and then bites back tears, body shuddering with the force of repressing them, and Jon’s entire heart jolts and stutters with worry. He sits up and wraps himself around Martin, as much as Martin will let him. That breaks Martin enough that he softly yelps, then takes a long moment to compose himself. “Could you tell me it’s okay?”

“Tell you what’s okay?” Jon asks, leaning his head on Martin’s shoulder.

“Everything. Me. What I’m doing with--with everything. I just need you--I need  _ you _ to tell me it’s alright, and...and we’ll be fine.”

“It’s okay,” Jon says, softly, absently running his hand up and down Martin’s arm in an attempt at comfort, even though he can’t quite tell what’s even wrong. “We’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Martin says, nodding. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“What’s going on, Martin? Please, talk to me.”

“I’m just…” Martin says, shrugging. “I’m just having one of those days. Please don’t worry about me, love.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I will too.” Martin sighs heavily, thumbs a tear off his own cheek. “Did you know--someone told me once that the Chinese character for love is a man defending his family from a tiger. I think about that sometimes, that--that that’s a pictographic representation of love. I mean, how--how would you even  _ start _ to pictorially represent love if you had to?”

“I don’t know,” Jon says, considering it. Love, for him, has always ended in something shattering irreparably. “A really beautiful old vase falling off a table, centimetres from the ground?”

“Bit complicated, esoteric, and dark,” Martin says, almost smiling. “But I guess that’s you.”

“Fine, then, master linguist, what would you do?” Jon asks. 

“I don’t know. I think I like it the way it is in Chinese, actually. Love is protection, you know? Doing whatever it takes to keep the people you love safe and alive,” Martin says. “Wish everything were as easy to protect you from as a tiger would be.”

“What are you protecting me from?” Jon asks, searching Martin’s face. 

“Nothing,” Martin says, quickly. Too quickly. Jon has the odd sense of being on a roller coaster that’s just crested the first big lift hill. “Misspoke.”

“You think you could kill a tiger for me?” Jon asks, half-smiling. Martin stays solemn. 

“I think I could do much worse for you,” he says, and Jon isn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so he just blinks. 

“Well, thankfully there aren’t any tigers in Scotland,” he says, sort of stupidly, running a hand back through his hair and leaning his entire body on Martin. 

“Yeah,” Martin says, seeming to sort of snap out of whatever came over him. “No monsters here but us.”

“But me,” Jon corrects. 

“You might be surprised.”

“I’m wrong about a lot of things, but I have a  _ lot  _ of conviction that you don’t have a monstrous bone in your body,” Jon says. At least they’re in familiar emotional territory now. Martin gets in these self-worth spirals, and Jon can’t ever fix it, but can at least try and pull him out of the nosedive with affection and reassurance.

“You don’t really know me, Jon,” Martin says, and it’s so firm and sad that Jon has no idea, yet again, how to respond. 

“I love you,” he tries, and Martin nods, laughing quietly and humorlessly to himself.

“I’m lucky,” he says.

“What can I do?” Jon asks, and Martin sighs, shaking his head.

“Nothing. There’s nothing you can do.” He manages a half-smile at Jon. “So you don’t remember any of your dreams?”

“No,” Jon says, shrugging. “And I don’t remember falling asleep. Or--or anything about yesterday, actually. I don’t…” He concentrates, trying to figure out what the last thing he remembers is--the Lonely, Martin,  _ I see you, Jon _ , Scotland--but Scotland all blurs into a shapeless streak of memory, no specifics, just...sort of a naturally lit fog. 

“That’s okay,” Martin says. “Not really much to remember. We didn’t do anything. Went for a walk, had our daily Scrabble tournament, etcetera.”

Jon believes him, instantly and instinctively, but some part of his mind feels a bit like a cornered animal looking for an exit, like the roller coaster’s gone over the hill and his stomach’s dropped out into freefall. He checks his pockets, desperately, for some clue, like that’s going to help him with anything, but all he finds is the spiderweb lighter, a familiar weight in his hand, like it was always meant to be there.

He slides it back, and then realizes--it’s strange he fell asleep in his clothes. He never does that, not in a bed at least, not since uni. “Martin, why didn’t I change before--” he starts, but then something more pertinent hits him: he doesn’t sleep anymore.

Deja vu slams him like a truck, and nausea pulses through him as his mind struggles through it, trying to figure out the intense familiarity. Martin responds, but Jon barely hears, his hand twisting the sheets.

“You were really tired, I guess, I didn’t want to wake you,” Martin says, and--well, that makes sense, even if-- _ no _ , he still doesn’t sleep, though, is the thing. 

“Why are you lying?” Jon asks--well, really, gasps out. 

Martin sighs heavily. “Jon, we’ve been over this. I’m not lying to you. I wouldn’t.” He bites his lip, looks away, and then turns back. “And have you considered that maybe even if I am, I’m doing it for a good reason?”

Martin’s right, he’s--he wouldn’t lie, and if he did, it would be  _ for  _ Jon. To help him. To protect him, like he said before. “Right,” Jon says, looking down at the bed. “Yes. Right.”

“It’s alright,” Martin says, exhaustion sliding back into his voice as he puts a hand on Jon’s leg. “The paranoia’ll get better eventually. It’s not your fault.”

Jon hits the bottom of the first drop, and the roller coaster evens out for a moment. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.”

“I just...it’s odd that I don’t remember, isn’t it?” Jon asks, unable to stop poking it.

“Yeah, a bit,” Martin says. “D’you, uh. Do you want tea?” He gets up quickly, and Jon follows, trailing behind. Something’s off in his inner ears, he doesn’t feel quite balanced, the world tilting under him. He presses against the wall as he walks, trying to keep himself upright. Eventually he has to disconnect, though, and pitches hard to the side, about to fall, and then--something holds him up, like string attached to his spine. The roller coaster hits its second peak.

He squints in confusion, reaches up, trying to find--but there’s nothing there, so he shakes it off, a shiver running through him. Losing his mind again, that’s all it is. Losing his memory, losing a hold on reality, losing his ability to trust the people he loves, it’s...what else should he expect, by now? 

He sits down at the kitchen table and watches, chin in his hand, as Martin makes tea. The unerring, loving routine. He left his phone on the table, and Jon pokes at it, turning it on to check the time. There’s several texts from Georgie. The second drop comes, faster and farther than the first, and Jon swallows hard, heart pounding.

_ What the fuck was that? _

_ What did you do _

_ Martin, you fucking asshole, what. Did. You. Do. _

_ Where is he _

_ Was that actually him on the phone? _

_ It fucking was, wasn’t it? _

_ How??? _

He doesn’t--it’s not that he understands what’s happening, because he doesn’t, not at all, but it’s definitely  _ something _ , and something  _ bad _ , and that means Martin  _ was _ actually lying, gaslighting him, forcing him to lose what little faith he had in his mind. 

There has to be a way to play this off and figure out what’s going on, but--he can’t find it, not with his mind racing like this, not without any memory or context for the last several days, at least. Maybe it’s been weeks. He doesn’t know. He needs a smoke, he needs to clear his head, he needs--he pulls the lighter out of his pocket and starts absently flicking it, unable to take his eyes off the messages, rereading them, trying to parse--

Martin slides the phone away from Jon and not-quite-slams a mug of tea down in front of him. “Ever heard of privacy, Jon?” he asks, and it sounds like it’s meant to be teasing, but there’s a sharp, dark edge to it. “What am I saying, of course you haven’t. Avatars of the Eye aren’t aware of the concept.”

“Martin, I just--” Jon starts, and Martin shakes his head.

“Don’t. It’s okay,” he says, clearing the messages. “D’you want food, or--”

“I’m alright,” Jon says, suspiciously eyeing the tea. His old paranoia burns white-hot in his chest as he wonders if--if it’s drugged, if that’s the reason he can’t remember anything specific, if--but Martin drinks his, and Jon watched him pour both mugs, so…

He takes a sip and Martin looks somewhat appeased. “It’s nothing to worry about,” Martin says, pointing at his phone. “I think something’s been going on with Melanie, maybe? Georgie’s been weird and on edge.”

“I didn’t know you two talked,” Jon says, cautiously.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t know,” Martin says, shrugging. “I think she wants to check on you without wanting anyone to realize she cares.”

While that sort of makes tenuous sense, it doesn’t explain the specific messages. Jon decides to accept the explanation, not wanting to trip every possible sensor Martin might have about Jon realizing something’s wrong. “Hmmm,” is all he can manage, but it seems to be enough.

“You planning on committing light arson?” Martin asks, gesturing at the lighter still tightly clenched in Jon’s hand with his mug. 

“Too much grass in Scotland,” Jon says, absently. “It’s time someone did something about it.”

Martin smiles, and despite all of his fears and suspicions, that smile does still melt Jon’s heart. “You show that grass who’s boss.”

“I think I will,” Jon says. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

“You’re not going to smoke, are you?” Martin asks, and the usual Blackwood Disapproval twists his face, but there’s something disingenuous about it behind the eyes. It feels like a double bluff, somehow, and it puts Jon even farther on edge.

“No,” he says, now truthfully. It’s an odd thing to be manipulated into, but he’s not going to let himself regardless, no matter how fucking desperate he is for the gentle, calming rush of chemicals his own brain doesn’t produce. 

“Good,” Martin says, drinking his tea. “Don’t want you to die young.”

“No, not again,” Jon says, the words sort of slipping out before he can--what does he mean  _ again _ , what--

Martin has a similar reaction, confusion pulling at his face. “Jon, what does that mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Jon says, trying to figure it out and coming up blank. “Just saying things, I guess.”

“Alright,” Martin says, but his face doesn’t clear at all. “Well, enjoy your walk.”

“I’ll try,” Jon says, as unbidden, his mind starts flickering over to escape plans. But ultimately, he was the Eye’s before he ever knew it. He knows, without any supernatural assistance, that he can’t leave until he figures out what’s happening here.

It’s going to have to be a productive walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I don't say this enough: I love everyone who reads this and comments so much. The fact that you guys care enough to theorize makes me So Happy and I really desperately hope I don't horrifically disappoint you all when we get around to revealing what's really going on.


	13. 7.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Very dark, longer than normal, and of dubious coherence.
> 
> CW: memory loss, questioning sanity, violence (I guess it could be considered domestic???), suicide mentions

The cold air helps, as it sinks into Jon. He feels a bit clearer, a bit more aligned with reality. He sort of wished his memories would magically return if he got out of the house, somehow, like everything would come back to him perfect and whole.

But no. He only has himself. So, fine. He can work with that. He only ever has himself most of the time. He’s fairly certain the only way he’s going to figure anything out is by getting to Martin’s phone, calling Georgie, asking--asking for an explanation, for  _ help _ , because it seems like whatever’s going on with Martin isn’t something he can be talked out of. He seems pretty set on whatever--well, maybe it’s not bad, in the end, but if he doesn’t explain, Jon won’t ever know.

So he has to get to the phone. To get a hold of the outside world. He’s not steady enough to get to the town miles away, he’s very aware of that, and it would be foolish to try, as much as he’d rather bolt than go back inside.

His options, as he sees them, are either managing to distract Martin and keeping him away from his phone for long enough to use it (seems like a non-option, now that he’s tripped that particular sensor, and besides, Martin may’ve changed the passcode), or knocking him out (difficult, both physically and emotionally, and terrifying long-term, but a more likely successful plan).

He wonders, though, if Martin  _ wasn’t _ just trying to gaslight him, if--if maybe this really is all Jon’s fucking paranoia, writhing violently, seizing his mind and pinning it.

But unless he’s full-on hallucinating, the texts were real, and he’s a little frustrated that he keeps doubting himself. It doesn’t feel natural, it doesn’t feel like  _ him _ , it feels like--like string weaving into his mind, pulling it in the direction it wants to go. So, fine, he can’t trust his own mind for  _ new _ reasons. Still a well-worn routine. He knows how to double-check reality at this point.

He can’t think of any way to distract Martin. There’s nothing to do other than wait for him to fall asleep, and he’s fairly certain that’s not going to work. His guts sink as he tries to play out scenarios and they all turn to violence. He knows, at least, that Martin would never hurt him. Maybe that makes it worse, that he could lash out and knock Martin out and that Martin probably wouldn’t even try to fight back.

He’s overthinking. It’s a simple, binary choice: go back and play dumb and hope everything will reveal itself eventually, even as the fear eats him and everything gets worse and he completely loses faith in himself, or attack Martin.

Simple is maybe an overstatement. It’s binary, at least. Knowledge or ignorance. Control or fear. He’s so fucking sick of being in the dark, just the means to someone else’s end. He’ll hate himself for this, but fuckit, he hates himself for something all the time.

He doesn’t want to hurt Martin, really doesn’t. No way around it, though. He takes a long several moments to try and put himself in the frame of mind for it, tries to summon all the uncertainty and fear, but--but it doesn’t work. It’s still Martin, it’s still--whatever’s going on, he must have a reason, he must--but  _ no _ , that’s the strings again, pulling him tight, isn’t it? Jon’s gut says that everything’s wrong, and that this isn’t Martin, not  _ his _ Martin, something’s  _ wrong _ .

The strings dig tighter. Not  _ his _ Martin? What the fuck other Martin would he be? Who else could he  _ possibly _ be? Paranoid delusions, it’s all just--

No. No, this is real, and the doubt is only going to get worse the longer he waits and he has to shatter all of it before it gets bad enough that he stops trusting a single thought he has. On his way back into the house, his hand curls around a shovel resting against the outer wall, and he tries to lift it, to--to maybe use as a weapon, even if that’s brutal and crude and horrid, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because as he tries, something seems to force his hands open, pry his fingers off, and it falls to the ground.

He backs away from it. Doesn’t try to pick it up again. He knows the definition of insanity, and he doesn’t need to bash his head against the wall, even as fear twists his guts. He’ll figure something out, he has to. He tries to think of something, anything else--

The sound of the front door closing behind him startles him, because he doesn’t remember coming inside, but--he was going to do something. He had a plan, what--what was he going to do? He was going to--

“Jon?”

Martin. Martin will know what he was going to do, won’t he? Martin knows everything, he’s so much smarter than he lets on, and--

_ Wait. _ The phone. He needs the phone. Maybe...maybe he could just ask?

“Could I use your phone?” Jon asks, distractedly pulling his hair back with a hand. It comes away wet, but he doesn’t consider why.

“Why?” Martin asks, suddenly guarded, even as he hugs Jon, wrapping strong arms around him, and Jon starts to forget his doubts again. 

Why  _ does _ he want to--oh, right, he-- 

“I just want to call--” Jon starts, trying to remember.  _ Right _ . Shit. Georgie. The texts, the ominous texts, the...yes. But he can’t say Georgie, because Martin will say no or lie or-- “--Basira. I want to see how...how she’s doing, if she’s found Daisy, uh...I’ve been thinking about her.”

“The reception up here’s pretty shit,” Martin says, cautiously. “Every call I’ve tried gets dropped. I can text her for you?”

“No, that’s…” Jon shakes his head, pulling away. “That’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Martin says, scratching the back of his neck, eyes not moving from Jon. Watching for any sudden movements. “Have a nice walk? You were out for a while.”

“Yes,” Jon says, instinctively, too quickly. “Beautiful day.”

“Really?” Martin asks, voice tightly-strung. “Because it looks like it’s raining.” He points out the window, and Jon realizes he is, indeed, damp. Right. The wet hair. How did he not...what’s  _ wrong _ with him?

“So it is,” Jon says. His heart pounds in his chest, strong and terrified. He can’t catch his breath. He slips by Martin, casually, going into the kitchen and--there’s a pan on the stove, and he tries to look casual as he ghosts his hand over the handle, like maybe he’s going to put it in the sink and wash it out. The pan isn’t particularly heavy or strong, he’s confident enough that he won’t  _ kill _ Martin by accident, but he still has to swallow bile as Martin comes up behind him and kisses the top of his head.

“I’m worried about you, Jon,” Martin says, softly, and Jon’s hand clenches around the handle. He tries not to cry in fear and preemptive guilt. Martin wraps his arm around Jon’s stomach and sort of gently rocks him from behind. It’s overwhelmingly comforting and it’s truly a testament to how tense Jon is that he doesn’t immediately melt into it.

“Please let go of me,” Jon says, throat tight, and Martin lets go immediately, like Jon burnt him, and Jon doesn’t turn around yet. Doesn’t want to see the pain in Martin’s eyes, the wounded look he can picture all too clearly.

“Jon, talk to me,” Martin says, and it’s more of a command than a plea. Jon finds words bubbling in his throat, and he swallows them down, twisting tighter around the handle, and he bites his lip, cuts the strings in his mind as quickly and wildly as he can, shaking them off, and turns, swinging the pan into the side of Martin’s head. 

He collapses, but slowly, blinking in confusion and pain, and Jon vomits in the sink, guilt and self-hatred filling him completely. His hands shake as he crouches to pull Martin’s phone out of his pocket, and he sits against a cabinet, numbly taking Martin’s hand to unlock the phone. The gesture is strangely intimate and another wave of repulsion shockwaves through Jon’s body.

He pulls up Georgie’s text thread. The only texts from her are the ones he saw earlier, and they once again fill him with dread. He calls her, and has to put the phone on speaker and lay it on the ground, because his hand is shaking too badly to hold it up.

She answers almost immediately, and before she can say anything, Jon blurts “Georgie, fuck, what’s going on?”

She gasps, sharply. “Jon, is it--is it really you, I--?”

“Yes, Georgie, yes, it’s me, what--what’s happening, I’m--I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t remember anything after--after leaving London, and I--I’m fucking  _ scared _ and something’s wrong with Martin, and with me, I think, and--” He pauses for air.

“What do you mean ‘after leaving London’?” Georgie asks. 

“I--what?”

“You  _ died _ . In London.”

“Well, that seems improbable,” Jon says, blinking rapidly as half-formed memories start pelting him. Dissonance rises. 

“A bit!” Georgie says, then laughs, a little hysterically. “God, what the  _ fuck _ , Jon?”

“Did you--did you see my body? What-- _ happened _ ?” Jon asks, wrapping an arm around himself as his whole body starts shuddering violently.

“You killed yourself,” Georgie says, all the laughter fading in an instant. Jon swallows bile.

“ _ What _ ? Why?”

“Don’t know,” Georgie says. “Didn’t leave a note. I always thought that was odd, you know. You always  _ loved _ a good bit of exposition.”

“Are you certain I did it?” Jon asks.

“Yeah,” Georgie says. “No foul play.”

“How do you know?”

“Cos I joined the End,” Georgie says, shortly. Jon knows that tone. No follow-ups will be acknowledged or answered. He stays silent, waiting for more. “Martin, I mean...fuck, I felt horrible for him. We all did. The way you two loved each other, for you to--to leave him like that, no warning, no explanation, it was...he was shattered.”

Jon looks at Martin, semi-conscious, hand twitching on the ground next to him. “But?”

“But he--he went manic and just-- _ bad _ , and--” She trails off and sighs. “I don’t know. We all sort of cut him off, and then...I thought it was over.”

“Georgie, if I’m dead, why am I--” he asks, and she cuts him off before he can finish.

“I don’t  _ know _ ,” she says. “That’s the thing. As far as I can tell, as far as--fucking  _ Terminus _ knows...you’re still dead.”

“Huh,” Jon says, vacantly, unsure of what else to say. “I...huh.”

“Yeah, bit of a mystery, real spooky, definitely something to do an episode on,” Georgie says. “At present, though, you have to get out. I don’t--I don’t know  _ where _ you are, but if you come back to London, we can figure this out.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Jon says. Martin’s eyelids flutter, quickly, and he coughs, starting to push himself up. “I don’t--”

Martin reaches out and ends the call, wincing and poking the broken piece of skull where Jon hit him. It comes away not bloody, but cobwebbed over, and Jon feels profoundly ill. He licks his lips and tries to speak, but Martin beats him to it.

“Like Annabelle Cane, I know,” he says, almost smiling. “Freaked me out, too.”

“Martin, I’m sorry I--I didn’t know--” Jon says, and Martin shakes his head.

“No need, Jon, I understand,” he says. “It’s--your nature, I guess. The Archivist collects knowledge. I get it. See, uh, my Jon, he--he never really got that far? He...made sure of that, actually.”

“He wasn’t the Archivist?” Jon asks, softly, confused about the ‘my Jon’ comment, but accepting it.

“No, no, he  _ was _ , he just...he didn’t want it to consume him, like it consumed you,” Martin says, shrugging. “Or I assume it did. I guess I don’t really know you. I just...figure you’re like me.”

“Like you?” Jon repeats, barely able to force the words out.

“You know,” Martin says, and Jon really doesn’t, until "Devoured whole.”

“Ah,” Jon says.

Martin heaves a sigh. “I’m really trying, Jon. I tried disorienting you--didn’t work. I tried erasing everything? Here we are. You’re...you’re not easy, but...I’ll get there, Jon, I will, I  _ have _ to.”

“Get where?”

“You’ll see,” Martin says, a little sadly, reaching out and brushing Jon’s hair behind his ear. Jon tenses, but doesn’t flinch away.

“I don’t understand,” Jon says.

“You’re not supposed to,” Martin says. “Look--just, trust that I’m doing this for both of us, okay? You--you’ll get to go back. To  _ your _ Martin. I know I’m not--I’m not him. I bet I’m nothing like him. He...he hasn’t been through what I have.”

“I  _ don’t understand _ ,” Jon repeats.

“I  _ know _ ,” Martin snaps. “I’m trying to tell you that--if you just--if you  _ cooperate _ …” He sighs again, chews his lip. “Forget it. Go again.”

The floor falls out and nothingness swallows Jon whole without bothering to chew.


	14. 8.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really didn't mean to update again so quickly, but I got stuck at a desk for nine hours for work so...Anyway, I tried my best to write Gertrude in this chapter, but it's not something I've ever attempted before and I'm not sure I succeeded. I'd call this All Exposition, but after the last chapter, I figured you guys needed the break.
> 
> CW: pain

The pain hits him before anything else, radiating through every square micrometer of his body, sharp and writhing and impossible to ignore. He can’t get a grasp on where he is or why or even particularly  _ who _ , because it’s absolutely brutal and relentless and he can hardly breathe.

He struggles for air, his breaths high and tight and whining, and then memories come crashing back hard into his mind. The loops. The worlds. The terrifying, resolute,  _ sad _ Martin who appears to be yanking his strings, forcing him through this. He’s sure he’s been sent back somewhere and somewhen else, but he can’t see through the pained static completely obscuring his vision.

Finally, somehow, after what feels like endless hours of being cognizant of nothing but the futility of his situation and the agony arcing through him, it fades. Slightly. Not all the way. Just enough that he can start to get a loose hold on himself.

He knows he’s in the Institute, but it takes him a frighteningly long moment to place exactly  _ where _ . Not the Archives, he breathes the Archives, he may or may not  _ be _ the Archives, but he hasn’t worked anywhere else in the building in what feels like centuries. He recognizes his desk, after a moment, and certainly the people on either side of him.

He’s back in Research, flanked by Tim, who’s completely lost in his own world, tapping the spacebar and aggressively lipsyncing to whatever he’s blasting over his headphones, and Sasha, who’s furiously typing, biting her lip hard in concentration.

So Martin sent him all the way back to before anything even got remotely fucked up. Why? Just to torture him? Why is he doing  _ any  _ of this? He doesn’t want to trust that Martin, not now that he remembers everything again, even if--even if that Martin told him he could go back. If he cooperates. Cooperates with _ what? _

He needs the Eye, but--even if he had it, worlds ago, he knows he’s too deep in whatever all this is. Besides, if he’s still in Research, it’ll be a while before he even--well, the timewank hurts his mind a bit in the state he’s in, so he ignores the thought. Still, he needs--he needs to know what’s going on. He remembers Gerry, in the go before Martin reeled him back in...he’d suggested it was a ritual. 

Jon doesn’t know what he believes, but it’s not out of the question, and if he’s all the way back when he is, he knows of someone very familiar with rituals and how to stop them. He’s not sure he’ll be allowed to have the conversation, but he at least has to try. He spoke so little to Gertrude before her death, but after everything he’s listened to, everything he’s found, he feels he knows her.

She terrifies him, a little bit. She was effective, but she was alone. Maybe that was for the best. Nothing like this ever would’ve happened to her, he’s nearly sure of it.

He tries to get to his feet, braced heavily on the desk, but collapses hard onto the floor before he can fully stand. The thud doesn’t alert Tim or Sasha even remotely, and he remembers for one fond moment why he loved working with them before he gets himself back to his feet. He tries to keep his side to the wall so he can stay upright as he fumbles his way down to the Archives. 

Faces he doesn’t particularly recognize turn to him, and he ignores them, making his way to his old--future--office and knocking sharply on the door. He doesn’t wait for a response before he opens it, and firmly shuts it behind him, before near collapsing in the awful chair Gertrude apparently keeps to dissuade visitors from getting comfortable.

She looks at him with icy murder in her eyes, and he nearly laughs. It’s the expression he always imagined when he listened to her, and he’s sort of starstruck to have it leveled on him.

“Hello, Gertrude,” he says, almost smiling despite the intense pain in his...well, everything. It’s a decaying, unsustainable sort of pain. He can’t last much longer through this, he knows that without needing the Eye. Gertrude seems to see it as well, and her face shifts from irritation to reserved interest.

“Jonathan...Sims, is it?” she asks, and Jon nods.

“It is,” he says. “Look, this is all a long story. I don’t really know how to explain it.”

“It’s tangled.”

“Oh, very,” Jon says, laughing breathlessly. “What do you know about--” He doesn’t have time to go through every possible ritual, he has to make a leap of faith here, and it’s not like it’s a particularly long jump. “--about a Web ritual?”

Gertrude leans forward, arms on her desk, clearly interested. Jon, once again, feels the Eye trained on him, which is and always has been a bizarre feeling. Like trying to roll your eyes all the way back into your skull, managing it, and then actually seeing something.

“The Web doesn’t attempt rituals,” she says. It’s clipped. She’s confident she’s right, which doesn’t help Jon all that much.

“Do you  _ know _ that?” Jon asks.

“It never has. Why would it try now?”

“What if--what if it needs specific conditions, what if--” Jon starts, but she cuts him off.

“I don’t deal in hypotheticals, Sims. What do you know?” she asks, crossing her arms, and Jon leans back, pressing his hands over his eyes, trying to form sentences through the pain.

“I know that the Web is pulling me endlessly through versions of reality,” Jon says. “I know that a horrible, sad,  _ warped _ version of the man I love is trying to manipulate me into something I can’t figure out. I know that--I just want it to  _ end _ .”

“Why you?” Gertrude asks. “If you  _ are  _ actually being pulled through realities, for the purpose of a ritual, or for any reason, there must be something particularly special about  _ you _ . Though, I wonder if this isn’t just the Spiral preying on--”

“If it were the Spiral, why would I know about rituals, or the Web, or any of it?” Jon asks. Snaps, really. “I’m sick of being doubted. I am  _ fucking  _ sane.”

“Fine. Then answer the question.”

“Because I’m the Archivist,” Jon says, shrugging. “I don’t know.”

“So you’re  _ only _ the Archivist where and when you come from? Not in any other versions of reality? Even if you  _ were  _ the only you who became Archivist, presumably someone else would have the job in every other reality.” 

Jon pauses. It’s a fair point. “No, I--I’m the Archivist elsewhere, too.”

“So it can’t be that. If you’re truly dealing with the Web, nothing is by random chance. Think.”

“Are you familiar with the Eye’s ritual?” Jon asks, rubbing his temple as a tsunami of pain violently slams into him. He hugs himself, shuddering with it.

Gertrude’s eyes are hungry and lit up. “Yes.”

“It failed. I made it fail.”

“ _ Fascinating _ . That, I would say, is a compelling argument for you above any other version.”

“But--but  _ why _ , why would that--why would it wait until after--”

“Manipulation, Jonathan. Pulling strings. Isn’t that what the Web is all about? Maybe it’s been weaving this entire time, and light never hit it in such a way that the Eye could see it.” She looks near-delighted at the thought.

“But there’s still something left for me to do, something he--something  _ it _ needs me to do,” Jon says.

“I can’t help you with that,” she says. “Your mind is too tangled for me to behold a damned thing. I’m not sure I would be able to find it even if I could, since  _ you  _ don’t even know.”

“Wonderful,” Jon breathes, clenching a hand in his hair as the pain crescendos again. 

“Is there something constant between realities? Anything at all?”

Jon tries to think, but comes up with nothing until his hand instinctively slides into his pocket, and his finger hits--

The lighter. The shape of it pressing into his thigh, so familiar he never even noticed, but it’s been with him through all of this. Could make sense in most realities, but not this one, and considering everything, it feels...more than coincidental. Nothing’s coincidence. Not with the Web.

He starts to pull it out of his pocket, to show Gertrude, in hopes she might have an explanation, an insight, anything at all, but as he pulls it out, another wave of pain hits him, acidic in its intensity, eroding his ability to think, speak, move, or, indeed, breathe.

He struggles for air, struggles for anything, but all he feels is that sensation of being watched from inside, consumed like light entertainment, a statement for Gertrude to give to herself and file away under ‘possible Web ritual’.

He manages a last question, even if he’s not sure he’ll be able to understand the answer. “Why does it  _ hurt _ ?”

“Oh, that one’s simple,” Gertrude says. “You’re not supposed to be here. Reality itself is hard enough to deal with, let alone ones that aren’t yours.”

Jon just heaves a shallow, rattling gasp, and then he can’t manage another. He doesn’t want to get used to dying, but he thinks, possibly, he’s starting to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are So. Close. I think maybe this is only gonna be another five chapters or less. I'm so glad people are enjoying it. You guys really brighten my life, I'm sorry that in return I am just shoving darkness down your throats lmao


	15. 9.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's short. Think of it as a friendly drive-by emotional stabbing.
> 
> CW: blindness, pain, emotionally traumatic conversations (??)

Jon jolts alive again, and he can already feel the pain settling heavy in his bones, starting to erode him to nothing. It starts to ebb, after a breathless moment, but his vision doesn’t clear. He can’t see  _ anything _ , not even that static stabbing overwhelming through his mind. Just  _ nothing _ , just void, and panic spikes through him. 

He also realizes, with another sharp, anxious knife through his ribs, that he can’t feel the Eye at all, not even the weak, distant tether he had before. Another void. He starts to hyperventilate, swallowing bile down, still somehow terrified, after everything. He’d give anything to be like Georgie. He’d love to be beyond fear, and really, he’d hope after everything that he would be, but he still feels it, stronger than ever, hammering through him.

There’s a hand on his back, rubbing calming circles between his shoulderblades, and he manages to catch his breath again. “Who--who’s there?” he asks, trying not to sound scared shitless.

Soft, incredulous, fond laughter. Martin. “Your mystery lover,” he says. “You okay, Jon? What’s going on?”

“I can’t see anything, I can’t--” He reaches out for Martin, catches a handful of his shirt. He hears a sharp, small intake of breath. Martin pulls him close, hand in his hair.

“I know, Jon,” he says, softly. “It’s okay. I mean--well--it’s not  _ okay _ , but.”

“Why--Martin, why can’t I see, I--”

Martin’s chest heaves rapidly under him, like he’s trying to stay calm, keep something down. “Because you blinded yourself, Jon,” he says, simply, patiently, voice a little high. The pitch it gets when he’s trying not to get emotional. “Remember?”

“Oh,” Jon says. “Right. Yes. I...yes.” So there’s a world where he actually did it. But-- “Did you--did you do it too?”

“I…” Martin sighs, presses his forehead into the side of Jon’s head. “No, love. I didn’t.”

_ Why not _ seems like an insane question, under the circumstances, but it’s not like this is  _ his  _ Martin, not  _ his _ life to live, and he’s curious. “Why not?”

“Because--because you told me not to,” Martin says. “Because you told me cutting yourself off from the Eye might...uh...might be  _ bad _ , and I wanted--I wanted to help. To take care of you. So...so I am.”

From everything about Martin’s demeanor, the patience, the--it seems like this isn’t the first time Martin’s gone through this with him. So this poor fucker Jon’s bodyjacked really is losing it without the Eye. Good to know for the future, if Jon  _ has _ a future.

“You can’t do that to yourself, Martin,” Jon says, softly, trying to push his head into Martin’s neck and ending up ineffectually headbutting his shoulder. “You can’t--”

“I  _ know _ , Jon, you keep  _ saying  _ that,” Martin says, tightly, not quite snapping, but close. “And like I keep telling you, it’s my life, and I love you, and this is what I want to be doing. Okay?”

“No, Martin, it isn’t okay, it’s not okay for you to be--” 

He hits a wall of pain and can’t finish his sentence, can’t even remember what the end was supposed to be. He sort of just goes limp in Martin’s arms, and Martin makes a noise like a puppy tied up outside in the rain and holds him tighter. 

“What can I do?” Martin asks, and all Jon can do is blink, not that it makes a difference. The severed connection to the Eye is  _ hell _ , he can feel it distinct from the pain of existing in a different reality. He imagines it’s how people with chronic, decades-long addictions feel going cold turkey, he itches for that background high, for knowing that he had that power, for--and it’s sickening to ache for monstrosity like that, to be so dependent on a dread god that he falls to pieces the moment it’s gone.

“Nothing,” he breathes, and he knows it’s true. There’s nothing to be done. No one can live long like this, not well. “You can leave me.”

“Yes, well, like I said, that is  _ not _ a thing that is going to happen, and I’m done discussing it,” Martin says. “Look, it’s--it’s  _ fine _ , it’s like with anything, there’s gonna be good days and bad days, and--and that’s just--”

“And then there’s more bad days than good days, and then there’s never any good days,” Jon says. “I refuse to be your mother, Martin, you have to--”

“I said  _ stop _ , Jon!” Martin snaps. “Do you  _ ever _ listen?”

“Not really my specialty anymore,” Jon says, amused by his own half-joke, and Martin sighs in irritation. He feels Martin gear up to say something, but his attention’s pulled by--he remembers Gertrude, and the suggestion of--

He reaches in his pocket and feels the lighter, and even though he expected it to be there, it makes his worked-near-to-death heart pound a little harder. It has to mean something, he just has no idea what.

“I just--I  _ love  _ you,” Martin says, and Jon’s attention drifts back to him. “And you’re still you, no matter--no matter what.”

“I’m not, really, not without  _ It _ ,” Jon says, absently, trying to catch back up with his train of thought. To finish the ritual, he needs the lighter, presumably, but--for  _ what _ ? To burn himself to death? That can’t be right.

“I’m sorry, but that’s  _ bullshit _ ,” Martin says. “You know, even people with dementia, they’re still  _ them _ , at their core. Even if they can’t express it right, you can still see it, and--I mean, I know you don’t actually  _ have _ dementia, but--I’ve been doing research, since...since they--” He sighs, and just kisses Jon on the cheek instead of finishing his sentence.

Jon can sort of intuit the rest. Misdiagnosis based on incomplete facts. Fantastic. He feels a little ill on behalf of this Martin. He’ll be doing him a huge favor by dying in the next several minutes, but he’s certain Martin won’t see it that way.

“I love you too, Martin,” he says, reaching out and feeling his way up to Martin’s head, running his hand through Martin’s hair. He thinks about his Martin. Imagines, for a moment, that this poor, sweet Martin is his. They’re close enough. Might even be the same, minus Jon’s choice to blind himself.

He’s ready for this to end, he thinks. If--if the, well, the Bad Martin behind all this can really make it stop, can really send him back, then...then maybe it’s worth whatever he needs Jon to do. Maybe...maybe he should be selfish and give up fighting. He can’t stand this anymore. The pain is shooting through him, and he tries not to twitch in Martin’s arms, tries not to recoil from his own nerve endings.

“You know, when you--when you came to see me, all manic and wild, and--” Jon can hear the smile in Martin’s voice. “It’s absolutely messed up, but you asking me to destroy my eyes and run away with you was probably the most romantic moment of my life.”

“You’re a fucking odd one, Martin Blackwood,” Jon says, fondly, and Martin laughs, but there’s not a lot of humor in it, and it quickly dies off. 

“Yeah,” he says, softly. “I know--I know being the Archivist was destroying you, but  _ god _ , I wish...I wish you hadn’t done this.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispers. “I’m so sorry.” And he is, he’s sorry on behalf of the him that made this choice, he’s sorry it was even a choice to be made in the first place, he’s sorry that Martin loves him so much. He’s sorry about a lot of things. 

“Don’t,” Martin says, sniffing hard, shuddering a little under Jon. Fuck. He’s crying. “Don’t be.  _ I’m  _ sorry, I shouldn’t--I don’t mean to make you feel guilty.”

“It’s alright,” Jon says. “I deserve to.”

“ _ No _ . No, you don’t. Don’t say that.”

“Martin, I--”

“I said  _ no _ , Jon,” Martin says, and Jon can’t help but laugh hollowly.

“Alright.”

He can’t last much longer. He’s all too familiar with his body failing him, with what final moments feel like, with--well, maybe...maybe soon he won’t have to experience this anymore. Maybe he can end it. He really,  _ really _ wants to end it.

He wonders if the Bad Martin sees these worlds, if he knows where he’s sending Jon. He wonders several things, but as the pain crescendos again, his thoughts get pulled apart, and he finds himself wondering what he’d do if Martin just...died, the way the Bad Martin’s Jon did. Wonders what he’d sacrifice, who he’d be willing to hurt. He’s not angry with the Bad Martin, he’s really--he’s not. He understands.  _ Love makes monsters of us all _ , or some bullshit like that. His thoughts completely lose coherence. He bounces between sense memories, the edges of concepts he can’t remember names for, Martin’s familiar, comforting smell, and then--


	16. 10.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, well, I misjudged my timeline, and I think this is the penultimate chapter! Hope everyone likes Emotional Exposition.
> 
> CW: referenced suicide, upsetting revelations???

The pain stops like it was never there. Like it was all just in his head. Another thing to disbelieve, if he hadn’t made the irreversible decision to trust himself no matter what. He’s grateful it’s gone, no matter the cause. It’s such a relief he barely notices where he is, though he isn’t surprised.

Light streams through the windows of the safehouse, and Jon’s glad to see it. He’s surprised at himself for not feeling any dread or fear. Possibly it’s concerning that he’s gone too numb to care, possibly it’s concerning that he can’t help but feel a tinge of euphoria at the thought he could end it, no matter the cost, but--possibilities don’t particularly matter.

Martin looks bone-tired, sitting across the table from him. “Hi, Jon,” he says. Sighs, more like. “You ready to cooperate yet?”

“Depends,” Jon says, even though it doesn’t, because he wants to retain the air of moral superiority, at least for the moment. “I have questions.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do,” Martin says, not unkindly. “I’ll do my best to answer, but--could you--I have a question too.”

“Fine.”

“I know that--that things were different. I do _ know _ that, I  _ know _ you’re not--you’re not  _ my _ Jon, but…” Martin sighs. “No, never mind. Stupid--stupid question. You wouldn’t know.”

“He was scared, Martin,” Jon says, softly. “I don’t know exactly how things differed from where I come from, but...he should’ve been. I’ve hurt people. Badly. I carry that guilt... _ all _ the time. I can’t escape it. Maybe he saw that coming, and…” Jon trails off and shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s just speculation. What I do know is it had absolutely nothing to do with you.”

“I...I know that,” Martin says, softly. “Just--it just seemed like we were--like  _ he _ was happy.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, and finds he completely means it.

“Why?” Martin asks, scoffing a bit incredulously and shaking his head. “Why--why are you being  _ nice _ to me, after I’ve--” He bites his lip. 

Jon sighs and pulls the lighter out of his pocket to idly play with. “If I lost my Martin, I’m fairly certain I’d burn the world to the ground trying to get him back. I’m assuming you’re doing the same.”

Tears well in Martin’s eyes, and he quickly looks away, sniffing. “I think this’d be easier if you were angry.”

“I’m not here to make it easy for you,” Jon says. “Look, if I do this--whatever it is--for you, can you  _ promise _ that I’ll be able to go home?”

Martin makes a noise that Jon interprets as pained uncertainty. “I can’t promise you anything, Jon, because honestly, I don’t know. I--I pull strings, sure, but, well, someone’s pulling mine too. I don’t even know if I’ll get what I was promised.”

“Your Jon back?” Jon asks.

“Yeah,” Martin says. “And look, Jon, I--I understand the uncertainty is frustrating,  _ believe me _ , I do. But if you don’t take the chance, both of us are gonna be stuck in this forever.”

“What will the ritual  _ do _ ?”

Martin shrugs, shaking his head. “I don’t know, and if I’m honest, I don’t much care anymore.”

“You  _ love _ people, Martin, come on, you can’t really mean--”

“You know a different Martin, alright? Don’t say things about me like you know me,” Martin says. “I agreed to--to facilitate the torture of someone who looks and sounds  _ exactly _ like the man I love, to--”

“Alright, fine,” Jon snaps. “I get the point. I won’t treat you like a decent person anymore.”

“Good! You shouldn’t!”

“You’re frustrating in the same  _ odd _ ways as my Martin, am I allowed to say that?” Jon says, and Martin almost smiles.

“I guess,” he says. “Anyway, sorry, you...you had questions.”

“Apparently you don’t have answers,” Jon says, raising his eyebrows. 

“Well, try me,” Martin says, still close to smiling. “I may not be the Archivist, but I know _ some _ things.”

“Fine,” Jon sighs, queuing up the list of questions in his mind, preparing for rapid fire. “Why doesn’t being  _ here _ hurt?”

“Yeah, I know that one, but you won’t like the answer,” Martin says, with a nervous laugh. “Uh--well, I guess it doesn’t really matter what you think of me, does it, and…” He sighs. “You’ve sort of been--well, with help--wresting control of the other versions of you, in the other realities, right?”

“Sure.”

“So they’ve been fighting back,” Martin says. “That’s why it hurts.”

“I didn’t ask why it hurt, I asked why--”

“Because there’s no other version of you to fight with,” Martin says. “Because the you that’s here is dead, and you’re, uh. Well, there’s no real way to put this delicately?”

“This is...my corpse,” Jon says, so Martin doesn’t have to uncomfortably force it out. He splays his fingers and sort of disgustedly sneers at them. “Rather well-preserved, considering it’s been dead a year.”

“ _ Yeeeeeah _ ,” Martin says, looking a bit ill, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s probably best you don’t ask why?”

“I won’t,” Jon says, laughing a bit airily with the strangeness of all of this. 

“Wow. Uncharacteristic.”

“What can I say, you’ve beaten it out of me,” Jon says, flatly. While he doesn’t actively dislike this Martin, he’s not exactly ready to let their dynamic slip too far into comfortable territory. “So, fine. What do I have to do to finish the ritual? How do I end it?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why? You don’t know?” Jon asks, a little incredulous that he’d do all this completely blindly. 

“No, I--” Martin sighs. “I mean that I literally can’t tell you. Physically incapable. You--you know how it is, once...once  _ They _ get Their hooks in.”

“So I have to figure it out?” Jon asks. “Fucking  _ great _ .”

“You’re a smart lad,” Martin says, managing to somehow smirk sadly. “You’ll get there.”

“Well, it’s obviously something to do with the lighter,” Jon says, flicking it on, sighing, and letting the flame go out. “So that’s something, I suppose.”

“Certainly is,” Martin says.

“What’s it like, being a Web avatar?” Jon asks, idly, paying more attention to the lighter than Martin.

“Sort of...sort of like you’re just...plucking strings on some huge, cosmic instrument, finding out the sounds they make, and then learning how to play the song you want to hear,” Martin says, slowly, considering. “Until you get really good at it, and then you’re playing reality like a concert harpist.”

“These alternate realities,” Jon says, looking back to him. “What--what  _ are  _ they, how does the Web--I just don’t understand the connection.”

“Every single choice you make creates a new reality where you chose different, you know that theory, right?” Martin asks.

“Yes, sure,” Jon says. 

“Choice and consequence, or, I guess, lack thereof, is sort of our thing,” Martin says, shrugging. “Can’t manipulate everything if you can’t see where every possible outcome leads.”

Jon hums in consideration. “I guess.”

“That’s about as much sense as it’ll make,” Martin says, a little apologetically. “D’you want tea while you try to figure out what to do?”

“Sure,” Jon says. “You really can’t help?”

“I wish I could,” Martin says, standing up and walking to the kitchen, trailing a hand over Jon’s shoulders as he passes him. Jon stiffens at his touch, but doesn’t flinch away. They could both use the comfort, he figures. Would both like to pretend they’re each other’s.

“What if your Jon doesn’t want to be back?” Jon asks, and Martin freezes in place.

“Then I guess he can leave again,” Martin says, voice small and tight with pain. “But I have to talk to him. I have to--he has to  _ know _ what he did to me, Jon. You  _ have  _ to know.”

“I do,” Jon says, softly. “But if--if the Web can bring him back, then why--”

“I don’t  _ know _ , Jon,” Martin says. “I have...I have theories, but. I guess I’m just trusting.”

“Why on  _ earth _ would you trust the--”

“Because I don’t have a  _ choice _ ,” Martin says, slamming the kettle down on the stove and whirling on Jon. “Because--because my options are blindly trust a fucking evil god so I can still hope for  _ something _ and have a reason to keep going, or to just give up. I’d rather hope.”

Jon’s throat closes, and his heart swells with love for his Martin, for--for the general concept of Martin, really, finding hope in the darkest places, in the worst situations, even if...even if it’s destructive and warped.

“So is the ritual...what’s the reasoning? How many loops, what--what pattern did I miss, what--” Jon starts, and Martin shakes his head, slowly.

“That wasn’t the ritual, Jon,” he says, softly, and Jon has a moment of painful clarity and understanding.

“Oh,” he says. His mind whirs through what Martin’s implying so quickly he can barely catch up to it, but the dust settles fast enough. The ritual started a long, long time ago. 1995. Bournemouth. He opened the book, and it began. “Oh, god.”

“Yeah,” Martin breathes.

“All this time? Everything?”

“All of it,” Martin says.

“So...so to end it…” Jon says, the thought flickering through his mind. He flicks the lighter on, slowly brings it towards his body, but Martin lunges the distance between them, grips his wrist and holds him back.

“Haven’t you died enough?” he asks. “Come on, Jon. Think.”

“I’m  _ trying _ ,” Jon shouts back. “I’m--my entire life was just-- _ fuck _ !”

“Yeah, I know, but you can--you can stop it, you just need to--”

“I need a  _ fucking cigarette _ ,” Jon sort of snarls, and Martin lets go of him, something like relief flickering through his eyes.

“Go ahead,” he says. “Might help.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that seems like a weird place to end the chapter but I promise it'll make sense. Thank you all for sticking with me, I hope you're continuing to enjoy...I'll have the last chapter up in the next few days.


	17. 10.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, you guys, we made it. Thanks for sticking with me. This is a really short chapter, and I truly, from the bottom of my heart, hope I'm not massively disappointing everyone. I've never finished a project this long before and I'm so glad I've had such incredible readers. You've made this so much fun. I have deeply enjoyed terrorizing you all.
> 
> ALSO, I need everyone to check out this incredible fanart! [@ceaselessrainfall](https://ceaslessrainfall.tumblr.com/post/629898639494479872/matryoshka-by-williammatagot-is-such-a-wild-ride) and [@quillmas-blog](https://quillmas-blog.tumblr.com/post/629904313024741377/fanart-to-this-incredible-fic-by-the-wonderful) did absolutely gorgeous work for this fic and I'm so grateful and you should all look at it!! (the links are on their names!!)
> 
> CW: mentions of addiction

There’s an unopened pack of cigarettes on the nightstand in the bedroom, which strikes Jon as a little odd, remembering his first time here. The fact that Martin went out of his way to buy them for him, apparently, along with the relief that flashed across his face when Jon mentioned smoking--he’s not an idiot, he can put two and two together.

So, fine. Lighting a cigarette finishes the ritual, apparently. He’s sure if he mentions that to Martin, he’ll be unable to confirm or deny, so why bother? He sits on the edge of the bed, curls his legs to his chest, and hugs them, chin pressed into his bony knees, staring at the wall with unfocused eyes.

Everything’s a bit much to process. His whole life from age eight just being the Web’s ritual--how is he supposed to handle that? Why  _ him _ , why--because it saw his path through life and figured it would be the easiest to divert? Because he’s the only him that ever stopped the Eye’s ritual? Because--is there even a point speculating? Does it even matter? He’s been dragged here, and he’s completely tangled up in spiders’ silk, and there’s nothing to be done except let himself be eaten and hope beyond hope he gets to go home.

He doesn’t understand, though, what--well, he’s not going to understand without asking. “Martin?” he calls. His voice comes out weak, and he doesn’t have the will to try again. It seems Martin was sort of hovering outside the room anyway, and he comes in, leaning on the doorframe.

“Yeah?”

“Why...why did you drag me through all that, if it wasn’t the ritual?” Jon asks, without even looking up at Martin. He can’t see that face, not--not now that he has to wonder if loving his Martin was even his choice.

“I knew I’d have to wear you down,” Martin says. “I--I had to get you to the point where you’d be willing to...to go through with this. It has to be your choice.”

“Why? If--if nothing else in my life was ever my choice, why this?” Jon asks, the existential exhaustion flooding his voice.

“You still had free will,” Martin says. “It’s not like you were mind controlled.”

“I don’t want to hear any lies or speculation, Martin, could you answer the question?”

“You’re the one who chose not to end the world for the Eye, right?” Martin asks, and Jon sighs.

“I guess.”

“So you also have to be the one to choose this,” Martin says. “I mean, you could still just not do it. We could just...we could just be here.” He sighs. “I guess that wouldn’t be so bad, right? You’re almost mine, I’m almost yours, it’s--”

“You’re nothing like my Martin,” Jon says, cold laughter shaking his body. He’s not quite sure where it’s coming from, since he can’t really consciously feel  _ anything _ at present. “You--what, you want to  _ pretend _ ? You want me to stay in this fucking corpse, and--and what? Play like we’re each other’s and everything’s  _ fine _ ?”

“Well, at least it’s a guarantee of  _ something _ !” Martin says, throwing his hands up and letting them fall back down. “I don’t know. Yeah, it was a stupid thing to suggest, but you don’t seem convinced about--”

“About potentially ending the world for the being that’s apparently puppeteered my life?” Jon asks. “No. I can’t say I’m thrilled.”

“You really love him,” Martin says, and it’s not a question, just a quiet statement of fact.

“Yes,” Jon says. “I do.”

“I hope...I hope it works out for you.”

“You as well,” Jon says. “I hope--I hope he wants to stay. I imagine if he’s anything like me, he will.”

“He is,” Martin says, softly. “Was. I guess.”

“Look, I’ve--I’ve figured it out, and I’m--I’m going to do it,” Jon says. “I just need a minute.”

“That’s completely fair,” Martin says, letting one of his little tension-shattering hysterical giggles out. “Take all the time you need.”

He hovers for a moment, sighing, looking at Jon, and then he turns and walks out. Jon starts flicking at the lighter again, wondering--why this? Why is this small, routine thing the gesture that could end the world?

But no, it makes sense, doesn’t it. Addiction is the Web’s game, and Jon never stood a chance. It’s always had him. He’s always had a choice, really, hasn’t he, and he’s always chosen to play into its hands, and now he’s making that choice again, one last time.

It’s funny, now that he’s seen how differently things could’ve gone, after wishing they were different for so long, and...nothing ever turns out better. Every reality is just as bad as his, if not worse. There’s no perfect world where one choice fixes everything. Things just love to stay broken. Maybe--maybe if the Web gets control, it can at least hold all the chaos back. Everything’ll go wrong in regimented, planned, puppeted ways. It’s  _ something _ , at least.

He knows what his Martin would say if he were here. Martin would tell him not to do it. Jon can almost hear his voice.  _ Don’t be  _ fucking _ stupid, Jonathan, it’s the entire  _ world _ you could be ending, I’m sorry, but I’m not worth it, you’re not worth it, nothing is. _

He wishes he were half as good a person as Martin. Wishes he could weigh consequence the way Martin does. Wishes he were less selfish. But he’s tired, he’s  _ so  _ tired, and he wants to be held so badly it aches through his stolen body.

Tragedies are tragic partially because of both inevitability and avoidability, or something. To think, Jon always used to imagine himself as a hero. 

Martin wouldn’t want him to do this, but Martin also lives on hope, and Jon  _ hopes _ , for once. It fills his veins. He gets why people do it. Losing everything and hoping for  _ something _ is...dizzying and terrifying and--well.

If he keeps thinking like this, he’s going to need something to even him out. He sighs and tilts his head back to try and force potential tears back where they come from, opening the pack without looking at it.

He puts a cigarette between his lips, flicks the lighter on, and--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3<3<3<3 thank you all.
> 
> If anyone has any burning questions I didn't answer in the fic, feel free to ask and I'll respond. Again, you've all been so amazing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All feedback is appreciated <3  
> Find me on tumblr @witnesstotheend


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